Early weaning of calves - how does it affect the behaviour?

Abstract

Effects of early weaning from milk replacer and access to teat buckets was investigated by conducting a 2 x 2 factorial experiment with age at weaning (6 or 13 weeks) and access to teat buckets (permanent or 15 minutes during feeding) as main factors. A total of 48 dairy calves in 8 subgroups of six calves were used in the experiment. The calves were videorecorded for two consecutive days the week before weaning, the to first days after weaning and at 20 weeks of age, and the frequency of oral behaviors was scored continuously. The frequency of sucking/licking pen fittings and naval/genitals increased the first two days following weaning, and then decreased to a low level at 20 weeks of age. There were no significant effects of age at weaning or access to teats on these behaviours. The frequency of sucking and licking mouth and ears was generally low and decreased after weaning and continued to decrease to a low level at 20 weeks of age. Tongue-rolling appeared to increase over time and at 20 weeks of age 18 of the 48 individuals performed this behaviour. The mean frequency of tongue-rolling was significantly higher for early weaned than for late weaned calves, 2.2 and 0.2 respectively (P < 0.05). The results indicate that early weaning from milk replacer have no significant effect on sucking and licking behaviour but the incidence of tonguerolling was higher in early weaned calves.