Maximizing calf well-being doesn’t stop with making sure they are healthy and productive, according to Dr. Jennifer Van Os, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Animal Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On a recent episode of The Dairy Signal podcast from the Professional Dairy Producers, Van Os said dairy and calf managers can and should go the extra mile to ensure that calves have good lives.
“We’re not just removing suffering, but actually promoting something positive,” she stated. “Calves have different needs than older cattle. They need to perform different behaviors that are normal for them.”
She explained the 5 key areas of enrichment for calves are:
- Sensory – Brushes are an excellent example of sensory enrichment that cattle of all ages enjoy, including preweaned calves. “Cows, heifers, and calves all use brushes immediately,” shared Van Os. She added that brushes do not necessarily need to be automated or expensive. Calves appreciate even stationary broom heads or deck scrubbers.
- Social – The most prominent example of social enrichment is social housing in pairs or groups. It has been extensively researched and shown to improve resilience to stress (especially weaning), behavioral flexibility, adaptability to new things, solid feed intake, average daily gain, and protection from cold stress. In fact, no study to date has shown that individually housed calves outperform those housed in pairs or small groups.
- Nutritional – Calves have a very strong desire to suckle, and are highly motivated by milk. Van Os advised feeding calves their liquid ration through a nipple, whether it’s via a bottle, pail, or autofeeder. She said researchers have also found novel ideas to help calves satisfy their desire to suckle, including stationary nipples/pacifiers. In her own research, “Braden” bottles that dispersed starter grain via nipples worked well for preweaned calves, but calves were too rough on them as they grew older.
- Occupational – An occupational enrichment is anything that keeps animals’ minds or bodies occupied. In many cases, occupational enrichment may accompany nutritional enrichment, such as “Kong” toys for dogs that are filled with peanut butter. For calves, hay is a highly desired nutritional enrichment that also can keep calves occupied as they pursue it. Exercise – and the space in which to do it – is another example of occupational combined with physical enrichment.
- Physical – Van Os cited the provision of private spaces for cows near calving as a physical enrichment because research has shown they tend to seek isolation at that time. For calves, similar isolation can be helpful after they endure painful events like disbudding. They also may sometimes seek isolation if they become overstimulated in group-housing situations.
Van Os cautioned that enrichments are only valuable if they serve a function and are utilized by the animals. Simply tossing a ball into a calf pen does not necessarily qualify as enrichment. Further, she cautioned against “anthropomorphizing” cattle by equating their needs and desires to our own as humans.
“Cattle have different needs than people, so we have to make sure we’re addressing their needs, not what we think would be nice for us,” she stated. An example would be sunbathing. “We might enjoy that, but research has shown us that cattle do not. In fact, they get heat stress from it.”
Because enrichments are not an industry requirement (except in cases of some specific brands), the researcher said it’s an area that allows for experimentation, trial and error, and low-cost methods of improving calf well-being. “It doesn’t have to be intimidating,” she advised. “You can really look at it as, ‘I’m not required to do this; I’m just trying to do something nice for my calves.’”
Van Os believes calf enrichment also may convey production benefits due to reduced stress, such as improved health, stronger immunity, and better reproduction, but more research is needed for confirmation. “For most enrichments, the benefits are not as obvious as something like heat-stress abatement,” she explained.
But there is extreme value, she said, in terms of long-term dairy industry sustainability. “This is a great opportunity to show consumers that we are concerned about the ethical thing to do for the animal,” she stated. “If we can showcase doing nice things for the animals, it improves public perception. It’s hard to poke holes in farming when you see happy animals.”
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