A pilot study of the behavior of dairy calves with or without their dams on pasture

Dairy calves are usually separated from their dams immediately post-partum and kept inside during the milk feeding period. Conversely - keeping them on pasture with their dams can promote natural behavior and be more accepted by the public. Our aim was to compare the behavior of dairy calves with or without their dams on pasture. Our pilot study included four groups of cow-calf pairs, 17 Norwegian Red (NRF) and three NRF x Holstein crossbreds allocated to each of two treatments: cow-calf contact (CC, n=10 pairs) and early separation (ES, n=10 pairs). The CC pairs were kept together on pasture for 6 weeks after calving with free suckling except during milking; calves were gradually weaned with part-time suckling in weeks 7-8 and were separated from the cows in week 9. The ES cows and calves were separated one to three hours after birth and kept on pastures without any contact; calves got access to 12-14 L milk/calf/day until week 6 and were gradually weaned in weeks 7-8. Observations of calf behavior were done once weekly in weeks 3, 6, and 9 and a food neophobia test was done in week 8. For the observations, the analyzed behaviors had a treatment*week interaction (P < 0.005). The CC calves used the calf hide less than the ES calves, but more so with increasing age. Before weaning, the CC calves were lying less than the ES calves in week 3, and the CC calves played more and were lying less in week 3 than in week 6. The ES calves grazed more than the CC calves in week 6, and unlike the CC calves, the ES calves grazed more in week 6 than in week 3. Allogrooming between peer calves was similar across the treatments. In week 9 (post-weaning), all calves increased their time spent grazing, and the CC calves spent less time lying and vocalized more than the ES calves. Descriptively, our food neophobia test showed numerically lower latencies to approach all buckets for the CC calves on the first test day. Our pilot study indicated that the calves behaved differently with and without their dams on pasture during our observations and that for most behaviors, the difference was dependent on age. However, the study was limited mainly by sample size and limited replication. Future studies should investigate how calf development may be affected through social facilitation by the cow.