DSD 6.10 | Summary of Social Housing for Calves

Dairy Science Digest

Individual housing for pre-weaned calves has long been gold standard, since it was first introduced in the 40s. However, interest has emerged around paired and group housing for this phase of production. Intermittent research on this topic has been published over the past 25 years but has never been compiled, until now.
Dr. Katarina Buckova from IA State University, and her team combed through research databases and compiled the results of several projects on paired housing, compared to individually housed calves. Research on production, health and behavior illuminated gaps in knowledge needed for producers to effectively move forward on this production practice.

If your farm is considering paired or group housing, listen in for a compelling discussion about the impacts, perceived and measured, about how this calf development concept could impact the future of your herd.

Topics of discussion

1:25 Introduction of Dr. Katarina Buckova
3:00 Why review / summarize paired housing research?
4:40 What age were calves paired
6:40 Performance & Health based observations of paired housing
7:49 Body weight gain
8:58 Table 11 – Summary of all metrics
10:04 Volume of milk fed
11:31 Feed conversion ratio
12:22 Did you see scours?
13:50 Possible negative effects of paired housing
14:49 “No effect” is still important information
16:13 Calf behavior differences, coping
18:58 Future research ideas
20:29 What do you want “boots on the ground” dairymen to learn from this project?
22:48 Discussion of paired vs group housing for new build
25:20 Paired housing presence in FARM program?
Featured Article:

Invited review: A systematic review of the effects of pair housing on dairy calf welfare and productivity

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