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Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term

Rearing dairy calves with their mothers could teach them how to graze, optimizing grass use, and improving their welfare and performance. We tested the short-term effects of dam-calf contact experience on grazing and social behavior of weaned calves, monitored over seven days for their first post-we...

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Autores principales: Nicolao, Alessandra, Coppa, Mauro, Bouchon, Matthieu, Sturaro, Enrico, Pomiès, Dominique, Martin, Bruno, Koczura, Madeline
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7750204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33365335
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.600949
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author Nicolao, Alessandra
Coppa, Mauro
Bouchon, Matthieu
Sturaro, Enrico
Pomiès, Dominique
Martin, Bruno
Koczura, Madeline
author_facet Nicolao, Alessandra
Coppa, Mauro
Bouchon, Matthieu
Sturaro, Enrico
Pomiès, Dominique
Martin, Bruno
Koczura, Madeline
author_sort Nicolao, Alessandra
collection PubMed
description Rearing dairy calves with their mothers could teach them how to graze, optimizing grass use, and improving their welfare and performance. We tested the short-term effects of dam-calf contact experience on grazing and social behavior of weaned calves, monitored over seven days for their first post-weaning grazing experience. “Dam” (D) calves were reared and grazed with their mothers until weaning. “Mixed” calves (M) were separated from their mothers after 4 ± 0.5 weeks, they experienced dam-calf contact, but not grazing. “Standard” (S) calves had never experienced either dam-calf contact (separated at birth) or grazing. Each group grazed an equivalent pasture plot offering heterogeneous herbage. Scan sampling of calves' activities was performed every 5 min, 6 h per day, on Days 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7. Daily, the time when calves started grazing after introduction to pasture, and the number and duration of their grazing cycles were measured. Daily activities were differentiated into ingestion, rumination, and idling. The proportion of time that calves spent grouped with other individuals or isolated, and standing or lying were recorded. When grazing, their bites were characterized by botanical family group, height of the selected bite and vegetation status. Individual average daily gains from the 2-week periods before and after grazing were calculated, and were equivalent between groups (313 ± 71 g/d). On Day 0, D-calves started grazing immediately (1 ± 4.1 min), unlike M- and S-calves (39 ± 4.1 and 23 ± 4.1 min), and D-calves grazed patches of dry grass 21.7 times less than M-calves and 16.9 times less than S-calves. Dry herbage patch preference and grazing start time differences disappeared on Day 1. Calves spent the same time ingesting and idling, but M-calves spent on average 1.6 times less ruminating than D- or S-calves. The D-calves showed grazing behavior similar to that of adult cows, selecting grasses throughout pasture utilization, although legumes and forbs were present in the grazed layer. On the contrary, M- and S-calves did not express any specific preference. The S-calves spent more time isolated but had more positive reciprocal interactions than the calves in the other groups.
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spelling pubmed-77502042020-12-22 Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term Nicolao, Alessandra Coppa, Mauro Bouchon, Matthieu Sturaro, Enrico Pomiès, Dominique Martin, Bruno Koczura, Madeline Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Rearing dairy calves with their mothers could teach them how to graze, optimizing grass use, and improving their welfare and performance. We tested the short-term effects of dam-calf contact experience on grazing and social behavior of weaned calves, monitored over seven days for their first post-weaning grazing experience. “Dam” (D) calves were reared and grazed with their mothers until weaning. “Mixed” calves (M) were separated from their mothers after 4 ± 0.5 weeks, they experienced dam-calf contact, but not grazing. “Standard” (S) calves had never experienced either dam-calf contact (separated at birth) or grazing. Each group grazed an equivalent pasture plot offering heterogeneous herbage. Scan sampling of calves' activities was performed every 5 min, 6 h per day, on Days 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7. Daily, the time when calves started grazing after introduction to pasture, and the number and duration of their grazing cycles were measured. Daily activities were differentiated into ingestion, rumination, and idling. The proportion of time that calves spent grouped with other individuals or isolated, and standing or lying were recorded. When grazing, their bites were characterized by botanical family group, height of the selected bite and vegetation status. Individual average daily gains from the 2-week periods before and after grazing were calculated, and were equivalent between groups (313 ± 71 g/d). On Day 0, D-calves started grazing immediately (1 ± 4.1 min), unlike M- and S-calves (39 ± 4.1 and 23 ± 4.1 min), and D-calves grazed patches of dry grass 21.7 times less than M-calves and 16.9 times less than S-calves. Dry herbage patch preference and grazing start time differences disappeared on Day 1. Calves spent the same time ingesting and idling, but M-calves spent on average 1.6 times less ruminating than D- or S-calves. The D-calves showed grazing behavior similar to that of adult cows, selecting grasses throughout pasture utilization, although legumes and forbs were present in the grazed layer. On the contrary, M- and S-calves did not express any specific preference. The S-calves spent more time isolated but had more positive reciprocal interactions than the calves in the other groups. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC7750204/ /pubmed/33365335 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.600949 Text en Copyright © 2020 Nicolao, Coppa, Bouchon, Sturaro, Pomiès, Martin and Koczura. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Nicolao, Alessandra
Coppa, Mauro
Bouchon, Matthieu
Sturaro, Enrico
Pomiès, Dominique
Martin, Bruno
Koczura, Madeline
Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term
title Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term
title_full Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term
title_fullStr Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term
title_full_unstemmed Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term
title_short Early-Life Dam-Calf Contact and Grazing Experience Influence Post-Weaning Behavior and Herbage Selection of Dairy Calves in the Short Term
title_sort early-life dam-calf contact and grazing experience influence post-weaning behavior and herbage selection of dairy calves in the short term
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7750204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33365335
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.600949
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