Impacts of Individual and Pair Housing on Calves

Abstract

Abstract Calf rearing is a large financial cost to farms, with particular importance for dairy heifer replacements where the forward investment does not receive any payback for 3–4 years. Ensuring the critical pre-weaning phase is carried out optimally and understanding the impact that housing has on this time is important. Historically, individual calf housing has been used to reduce disease transmission among calves, but there is limited evidence that pair housing has any detrimental impact on this. Instead, research over the past decade has served to highlight the range of benefits that pair housing can provide. Calves housed with others have increased play behaviours, which is a positive indicator of well-being. Pair-housed calves start to eat concentrates at an earlier age and in greater amounts, which can have positive impacts on growth rates, and longer-term improvements in reducing age at first calving and improving first lactation milk yields. Pair housing allows calves to start forming social relationships, which can have a calming effect in stressful situations such as group changes and can improve behaviours when heifers enter the milking herd. Pair-raised calves also have reduced food neophobia which can help adult cattle cope with diet changes that can occur frequently in the dairy herd. This growing body of evidence suggests that pair housing of calves results in overall better health and welfare compared to individual housing, therefore practitioners should help encourage farmers to move towards this housing type. Information © The Author 2023