Abstract
Simple SummaryAnimal welfare research is intended to address societal concerns regarding animal care, including natural living concerns. We reviewed the literature on calf behaviour when reared in more naturalistic outdoor systems with their mothers and herd. Understanding calf behaviour in more natural settings may help inform changes in calf management and housing that promote behaviours important to calf welfare.One important type of animal welfare concern is “natural living” (i.e., that animals are able to express natural behaviours that are important to them, and to engage with aspects of the natural world that they find important). The aims of this narrative review were to describe the behavioural development of calves (Bos taurus) in natural settings and use this to identify characteristics of natural systems that may be important to consider relative to this natural living conception of animal welfare. At birth, calves are licked by their mothers and soon stand to suckle for colostrum, and during the milk-feeding period, calves spend much of their time lying down. In natural systems, calves perform a variety of social behaviours with herd-mates, and slowly transition from their mother’s milk to eating solid food, by gradually increasing time spent grazing and ruminating. In contrast, on most commercial dairy systems, dairy calves are removed from their mothers at birth, housed individually, fed restricted amounts of milk and weaned abruptly at a young age. The results of this review suggest that accommodating key natural behaviours, for example through the use of teat feeding of milk, social housing, and gradual weaning, can help address welfare concerns.
Highlights
Published: 20 August 2021One way of interpreting animal welfare is Fraser and colleagues’ [1] model of three overlapping concerns: an animal’s biological functioning, affective states, and natural living.The latter is described as allowing an animal to use his/her adaptations when needed, and develop normally
Natural living concerns are acknowledged as important, but challenges remain in how to promote these in modern systems because “natural” behaviours are variable, some may be detrimental to welfare, and because the concept is difficult to define [2]
Little progress has been made in understanding and incorporating aspects of natural living into modern management systems for dairy calves
Summary
One way of interpreting animal welfare is Fraser and colleagues’ [1] model of three overlapping concerns: an animal’s biological functioning, affective states, and natural living The latter is described as allowing an animal to use his/her adaptations when needed, and develop normally. The aims of this review were to critically review the scientific literature on behaviours key to the normal development of calves in natural settings, and to identify general characteristics that could be incorporated into dairy calf (Bos taurus) management to improve welfare. This literature review describes general shifts in behaviour as calves age, with evidence from general changes in wild ungulate behaviour (e.g., young bison, water buffalo, and reindeer), and supports older descriptive studies with more recent experimental work with calves reared in indoor settings. All general behaviours described in this review have been described in calves reared intensively (i.e., sucking, resting, play, social behaviours, grazing or eating hay, and ruminating), and this review highlights the importance of environment in facilitating these behaviours
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