Abstract
Little is known about factors affecting individual variability in weaning age, feeding behavior, and growth of dairy calves. The objectives of this study were to (1) describe early-life individual characteristics of dairy calves and how these relate to weaning age, feeding behavior, and performance during the first 15 wk of age, and (2) to identify which of these individual characteristics predict weaning age of calves automatically weaned based on solid feed intake. Early-life characteristics of calves (n = 43) included scores for vitality at birth, drinking ability, learning ability to use the automated milk feeder in a group pen from d 1 of age, and personality traits assessed using exposure to a novel environment, a human, and an object at d 21 of age. Calves received 12 L/d of milk until d 30 when milk was reduced by 25% relative to the individual's previous 3-d intake average. Calves were weaned based on intake of solid feed (milk reduced by 25% at each of 2 intermediate solid feed intake targets, 225 and 675 g/d), and were weaned when they consumed 1,300 g/d of solid feed, resulting in variable weaning ages. A principal component analysis identified 5 factors that we labeled as low vitality, fearful, strong drinker, slow learner, and exploratory-active. Calves that were slow learners weaned at a later age, whereas fearful calves weaned earlier. No other early-life individual characteristics were associated with weaning age. Other characteristics (low vitality, strong drinkers, and exploratory-active) were associated with some measures of feeding behavior, feed intake, and growth, especially during the preweaning period. Measures of early solid feed intake (age to start eating and total preweaning intake) were best able to predict weaning age of calves. Individual early-life characteristics and measures of early solid feed intake can identify calves likely to do well or struggle during weaning.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 10250-10265 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Journal of Dairy Science |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 American Dairy Science Association
Funding
We thank the staff and students of the University of British Columbia Dairy Education and Research Centre who helped with data collection in this experiment, especially Stephanie Boeve, Julie Wong, Cheryl Linaksita, Ana Carolina Moncada, Allison Welk, and Jennifer Van Os. A Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant to MvK provided funds for the work on personality summarized in this study. The results summarizing the feeding behavior and weight gains were supported by Canada's NSERC Industrial Research Chair Program awarded to MvK and DMW with industry contributions from the Dairy Farmers of Canada (Ottawa, ON, Canada), British Columbia Dairy Association (Burnaby, BC Canada), Westgen Endowment Fund (Milner, BC, Canada), Intervet Canada Corporation (Kirkland, QC, Canada), Novus International Inc. (Oakville, ON, Canada), Zoetis (Kirkland, QC, Canada), BC Cattle Industry Development Fund (Kamloops, BC, Canada), Alberta Milk (Edmonton, AB, Canada), Valacta (St. Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada), and CanWest DHI (Guelph, ON, Canada).
| Funders |
|---|
| CanWest DHI |
| Intervet Canada Corporation |
| Novus International Inc. |
| ON, Canada), Zoetis |
| University of British Columbia Dairy Education and Research Centre |
| Westgen Endowment Fund |
| Dairy Farmers of Canada |
| Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada |
Keywords
- animal welfare
- personality
- precision dairy
- temperament
- vigor
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Food Science
- Animal Science and Zoology
- Genetics