While pair-housing calves has many benefits, it also brings some disease risks. Researchers suggest pairing early in life to capture all the upsides of pair housing.
“The benefits of pair housing have been shown to be improved solid feed intake, growth, and reduced stress,” described W.H. Miner Institute’s Sarah Morrison. “It also helps with calves’ fear of new feeds and improves the affective state and cognitive development of these animals.”
On the flip side, pair housing can raise the risk of disease transmission, increase competition for feed, and encourage cross-sucking.
A recent project conducted by researchers at the EthoLab at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná in Brazil compared timings of pairings on a commercial farm. The study was summarized in the Journal of Dairy Science with calves being paired early (6 to 7 days of life), intermediate (29 to 30 days of life), or late (49 to 50 days of life). All calves were then weaned at 78 days of life.
In a recent Miner Institute Farm Report, Sarah Morrison laid out some of the study’s findings.
“Early-paired calves exhibited fewer idle behaviors and more exploratory behaviors compared to intermediate or late-paired calves,” Morrison detailed. “Early-paired calves had higher odds of engaging in social behavior, while there was no difference between intermediate or late-paired calves.”
The study only included 140 calves, so there were limited disease recordings. No differences were found among the calves in disease prevalence.
Calves paired early had more consistent growth over the study period and exhibited higher average daily gains at 50 days of life. Correlated to that was greater starter intake in the first 2 weeks of life for early paired calves, with these calves consuming more starter in the first 30 days of life when compared to the late-paired calves.
Cross-suckling was evaluated at two time periods, and there were no differences between the treatment groups, but intermediate and late-weaned calves recorded more non-nutritive oral behaviors than early-weaned calves.
“This study adds to the support of pair housing calves. It further demonstrates that there is a critical time to pair calves, which is likely within the first 3 weeks of age,” Morrison concluded. “There appeared to be limited benefits of pairing calves at 30 days compared to pairing calves at 50 days of age.”
