Doyle S B, Miller-Cushon E K
Department of Animal Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
JDS Commun. 2022 Oct 8;4(1):46-50. doi: 10.3168/jdsc.2022-0264. eCollection 2023 Jan.
Dairy calves are active around the time of milk-feeding and often perform nonnutritive oral behaviors, particularly during weaning. This study evaluated the interactive effects of social housing and human contact following feeding, including scratching to mimic brushing, on postfeeding nonnutritive oral behaviors and rest, during the beginning of the weaning period. We enrolled individually housed dairy heifer calves (n = 14) and pair-housed heifer calves (n = 14; 1 focal calf/pair). Human contact was provided in the form of scratching calves beneath the neck to mimic allogrooming. The human was present for 5 min, within the 15-min window following morning milk-feeding. Human contact and control days, where there was no change in the postfeeding routine, were randomized for each calf over the course of 4 consecutive days during weaning. Behavior was recorded continuously from video for 1 h following milk-feeding. Individually housed calves performed more pen-directed nonnutritive oral behavior than pair-housed calves, but provision of human contact reduced the duration of this behavior to a level that did not differ from pair-housed calves. Although human contact did not affect the duration of pen-directed nonnutritive oral behavior in pair-housed calves, cross-sucking was reduced in pair-housed calves when they received human contact. Human contact following milk-feeding reduced the total duration of all nonnutritive oral behavior (pen-directed, bedding-directed, cross-sucking, and human-directed) and increased rest with no effect of housing treatment or interaction between housing treatment and human contact. These results suggest that human contact influenced performance of nonnutritive oral behavior following milk-feeding, particularly reducing pen-directed sucking in individually housed calves, highlighting the role of restrictive environments in the expression of these behaviors in conventionally housed dairy calves.
犊牛在喂奶时很活跃，并且经常表现出非营养性口腔行为，尤其是在断奶期间。本研究评估了断奶初期在喂奶后进行群居饲养和与人接触（包括模仿梳理毛发的抓挠）的交互作用对喂奶后非营养性口腔行为和休息的影响。我们纳入了单独饲养的小母牛犊牛（n = 14）和成对饲养的小母牛犊牛（n = 14；每组1头焦点犊牛）。通过在犊牛颈部下方抓挠来模仿同种梳理行为，以此提供与人的接触。在早晨喂奶后的15分钟内，人会出现5分钟。在断奶期间连续4天，对每头犊牛随机安排有人接触日和对照日，在对照日，喂奶后的日常程序没有变化。喂奶后通过视频连续记录行为1小时。单独饲养的犊牛比成对饲养的犊牛表现出更多指向围栏的非营养性口腔行为，但与人接触可将这种行为的持续时间降低到与成对饲养的犊牛无差异的水平。虽然与人接触对成对饲养的犊牛指向围栏的非营养性口腔行为的持续时间没有影响，但成对饲养的犊牛在接受与人接触时，交叉吸吮行为减少。喂奶后与人接触减少了所有非营养性口腔行为（指向围栏、指向垫料、交叉吸吮和指向人的行为）的总持续时间，并增加了休息时间，且不受饲养方式或饲养方式与人接触之间相互作用的影响。这些结果表明，与人接触会影响喂奶后非营养性口腔行为的表现，尤其是减少单独饲养犊牛指向围栏的吸吮行为，突出了受限环境在传统饲养的奶牛犊牛这些行为表达中的作用。
