Miller-Cushon E K
Department of Animal Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.
JDS Commun. 2023 Nov 17;5(3):264-269. doi: 10.3168/jdsc.2023-0441. eCollection 2024 May.
Social contact in early life has broad benefits for behavioral development and welfare of the developing dairy calf. The most accessible approach to providing social contact for commercially raised dairy calves is rearing calves in same-age groups, a practice that is growing in popularity. This symposium review highlights developing areas of research relevant for widespread implementation of social housing on commercial farms. I discuss the onset of social behavior in young calves, development of social preferences, implications of calf management and housing for expression of social behavior, individual differences in social behavior, and implications of environmental complexity within the context of social housing. Under both naturalistic and commercial settings, calves interact socially within the first days of life and develop preferences for familiar social companions. Early introduction to social housing appears to benefit the development of social behavior, which may affect integration in later social groups, with potential long-term effects. Housing and management factors affecting socially housed calves have potential to disrupt social synchrony compared with behavior under more natural conditions, which can reduce social lying, cause competition for access to feed, and may have implications for social bond formation and social learning within the social group. Although calves exhibit preferences for familiar individuals and motivation for social synchrony, social behavior is also widely variable between individuals and over time. Individual differences in social behavior may be attributed to personality as well as transient states such as disease or pain, and accommodating individual preferences for social interaction or isolation may be important within groups of larger calves. Throughout this paper, I contrast behavior of commercially raised calves in social housing with behavior of calves under more naturalistic conditions and address both short-term effects for calf development and potential longer-term implications for behavior and welfare. Welfare of commercially raised calves may be improved by refining social housing to better accommodate natural social behavior.
早期的社交接触对发育中的奶牛犊的行为发展和福利具有广泛益处。为商业化养殖的奶牛犊提供社交接触的最便捷方法是将犊牛按同龄组饲养，这种做法越来越普遍。本次研讨会综述重点介绍了与在商业农场广泛实施群居饲养相关的研究新领域。我讨论了幼龄犊牛社交行为的起始、社交偏好的发展、犊牛管理和饲养方式对社交行为表达的影响、社交行为的个体差异以及群居环境下环境复杂性的影响。在自然和商业环境中，犊牛在出生后的头几天就会进行社交互动，并对熟悉的社交伙伴产生偏好。尽早引入群居饲养似乎有利于社交行为的发展，这可能会影响其在后续社会群体中的融入，具有潜在的长期影响。与更自然条件下的行为相比，影响群居犊牛的饲养和管理因素有可能破坏社交同步性，这会减少社交躺卧、引发获取饲料的竞争，并且可能对社会群体中的社会纽带形成和社会学习产生影响。尽管犊牛表现出对熟悉个体的偏好和对社交同步性 的动机，但社交行为在个体之间以及随时间变化也存在很大差异。社交行为的个体差异可能归因于个性以及疾病或疼痛等短暂状态，在较大犊牛群体中考虑个体对社交互动或隔离的偏好可能很重要。在本文中，我将商业化养殖的犊牛在群居饲养中的行为与更自然条件下犊牛的行为进行了对比，并探讨了对犊牛发育的短期影响以及对行为和福利的潜在长期影响。通过优化群居饲养以更好地适应自然社交行为，商业化养殖犊牛的福利可能会得到改善。
