Growth rate, health and welfare in a dairy herd with natural suckling until 6–8 weeks of age: a case report

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Abstract

Over a period of two years, growth rate and health were measured for dairy calves allowed to suckle their mothers up to 6–8 weeks of age. Thirty-one calves were weighted weekly, and the mean daily growth rate was 1.2 ± 0.03 kg from birth up to 13 weeks of age. Illness in calves and young stock was not observed. In the cows, the mean incidences of ketosis, displaced abomasum, puerperal paresis, mastitis, teat injury and retained placenta were 0, 0, 8, 22, 1 and 1%, respectively, during a 6-year period. The mean daily gain of 56 growing bulls was 1.4 kg when slaughtered at 15 months of age, which is higher than the mean daily gain of 0.95 kg in the population. Probiotics, hormones and vaccines were not used, and antibiotics were only used for treating illness. The present study indicates many advantages and few problems when dairy calves are penned together with the cows and allowed natural feeding up to 6–8 weeks of age. This production system was easy to manage, preferred by the farmer, and may satisfy the public concern regarding the practice of immediate separation of cow and calf in commercial milk production.

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Most cited references 23

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Effects of pair versus individual housing on the behavior and performance of dairy calves.

E A Coenen, Daniel Weary, B Chua … (2002)

This study compared the health, performance, and behavior of individually and pair-housed calves fed milk ad libitum by artificial teats. Calves were separated from their dams within 24 h of birth and assigned to housing in either a single pen (10 calves) or a group pen (10 pairs of pair-housed calves). Calves were gradually weaned at approximately 5 wk of age and remained on the experiment until wk 8. Behavior was video recorded during wk 2 to 8. Before and after weaning, calves gained weight steadily with no differences between treatments. During the week of weaning, pair-housed calves continued to gain weight normally, but the individually housed calves experienced a growth check. There were no differences between groups in the amounts of milk, starter, or hay consumed, or in the incidence of scouring. There were also no differences in the amount of time spent self-grooming, sucking on the teat, or lying down. However, pair-housed calves spent more time standing inactive, more time moving, and less time with their head out of the pen than individually housed animals. Paired calves spent approximately 2% of the day in social contact, and the incidences of agonistic behavior and cross-sucking were very low. These results indicate that housing dairy calves in pairs allows benefits such as increased space for movement and social opportunities with no disadvantages in health and weight gains.

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Performance and feeding behaviour of calves on ad libitum milk from artificial teats

Michael C. Appleby, Beverley Chua, Daniel Weary (2001)

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Effects of Additional Milk Replacer Feeding on Calf Health, Growth, and Selected Blood Metabolites in Calves

J.D. Quigley, T.A. Wolfe, T.H. Elsasser (2006)

The objective of the experiment was to evaluate effects of increased milk replacer feeding on growth, intake, feed efficiency, and health parameters in stressed calves. Holstein bull calves (n = 120; approximately 3 to 8 d of age) were purchased from sale barns and dairy farms and housed in fiberglass hutches. In addition, wood shavings contaminated with coronavirus were mixed with clean shavings and added to each hutch before the start of the experiment. Calves were fed either a fixed amount (454 g/d) of a 20% crude protein (CP), 20% fat milk replacer to weaning at 28 d or a variable amount (454, 681, 908, and 454 g/d on d 0 to 7, 8 to 14, 15 to 31, and 32 to 41, respectively) of a milk replacer containing 28% CP and 17% fat without or with added dietary supplement containing bovine serum. Calves were also fed commercial calf starter and water ad libitum. Plasma IgG concentration in most calves on arrival at the facility was < 10 g/L. Intake, change in body weight, feed efficiency, morbidity and mortality, and selected plasma metabolites were determined. Body weight at 28 d, 56 d, daily body weight gain, intake of milk replacer, fecal scores, days with diarrhea, and days treated with antibiotics were increased with feeding variable amount of milk replacer over the 56-d study. Starter intake from d 1 to 56 was reduced from 919 to 717 g/d in calves fed fixed and variable amounts of milk replacer, respectively. Morbidity, measured as the number of days that calves had diarrhea, was increased by 53% when a variable amount of milk replacer was fed. Calves fed variable milk replacer were treated with antibiotics for 3.1 d compared with 1.9 d for calves fed 454 g of milk replacer/d. Concentrations of plasma glucose, urea N, and insulin-like growth factor-I were increased when calves were fed variable amount of milk replacer. Dietary supplement containing bovine serum had no effect on any parameter measured. There was no effect of milk replacer feeding on concentrations of nonesterified fatty acids, total protein, or growth hormone concentrations. Plasma tumor necrosis factor-α was highest in calves with the highest plasma IgG concentrations on the day of arrival and might be related to the calf's ability to identify pathogens in the environment. Under conditions of this study, calves fed variable amount of milk replacer and exposed to immunological challenge before weaning had greater BW gain, but also increased incidence of diarrhea that required added veterinary treatments.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Acta Vet Scand

Title: Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Print): 0044-605X

ISSN (Electronic): 1751-0147

Publication date Collection: 2007

Publication date (Electronic): 23 June 2007

Volume: 49

Issue: 1

Page: 16

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Companion Animal Clinical Sciences, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, P.O. Box 8146 Dep., N-0033 Oslo, Norway

[2 ]National Veterinary Institute, P.O. Box 8156 Dep., N-0033 Oslo, Norway

[3 ]Department of Basal and Aquatic Medicine, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, P.O. Box 8146 Dep., N-0033 Oslo, Norway

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Publisher ID: 1751-0147-49-16

DOI: 10.1186/1751-0147-49-16

PMC ID: 1913533

PubMed ID: 17587462

SO-VID: 42df41d3-c37a-4c51-a8eb-d47da0a834e8

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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Growth rate, health and welfare in a dairy herd with natural suckling until 6–8 weeks of age: a case report

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Animal Welfare

Most cited references 23

Effects of pair versus individual housing on the behavior and performance of dairy calves.

Performance and feeding behaviour of calves on ad libitum milk from artificial teats

Effects of Additional Milk Replacer Feeding on Calf Health, Growth, and Selected Blood Metabolites in Calves

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