A survey of calf management practices and farmer perceptions of calf housing in UK dairy herds

Abstract

Adoption of optimal management techniques for rearing dairy calves has significant effects on their health, welfare, and productivity. Despite much published literature on best practice, calf morbidity and mortality rates remain high. This survey aimed to establish current calf management practices in the United Kingdom, along with farmer perceptions surrounding different housing types. A survey containing 48 questions was distributed online to UK farmers via social media, online forums, and a convenience sample of veterinary practices and was completed by 216 participants. A descriptive analysis with frequency distributions was calculated, with chi-squared tests, linear regression and multinomial regression performed to assess associations between variables. There was a low level of regular veterinary involvement in day-to-day health decision making for calves (3/216, 1.4%), highlighting the need for appropriate staff training and standard operating procedures to ensure prudent antimicrobial usage. Restricted calf milk feeding remains highly prevalent in the United Kingdom, with most calves fed milk replacer (114/216, 52.8%), twice daily (189/216, 87.5%), initially given milk at 4 L/d (66/216, 30.6%) or 6 L/d (47/216, 21.8%). There was, however, a small number of farmers initially feeding only 2 to 3 L/d (28/216, 13.0%). Euthanasia of bull calves (5/216, 2.3%) and feeding antimicrobial waste milk to calves (8/216, 3.7%) both occurred on some farms. With regard to housing, use of individual calf pens has reduced from around 60% in 2010 to 38.4% in this study (83/216), with this reduction being partly driven by the policy of UK milk buyers. Farmer perceptions indicated that individual housing was thought to help to improve calf health and feed monitoring of calves, suggesting that successful use of group housing requires a higher level of stockmanship. The majority of farmers did not provide fresh bedding to calves on a daily basis (141/216, 65.3%), and relatively few disinfected both the calf housing (38.0%) and ground (47.7%) between calves, suggesting that hygiene practices may require additional attention in farm management protocols.

Using Machine Learning and Behavioral Patterns Observed by Automated Feeders and Accelerometers for the Early Indication of Clinical Bovine Respiratory Disease Status in Preweaned Dairy Calves

“…Similarly, accelerometers were reported to be a commonly researched PDT on dairy farms (Slob et al, 2020). Additionally, less than half of producers in the UK use individual housing, demonstrating a need for methods that detect diseases in socially housed calves (Mahendran et al, 2021). Thus, investigating the potential of familiar PDT such as an automated feeder and an accelerometer to indicate a calf that has outward signs of respiratory disease and is positive for lung consolidation is valuable.…”

Welfare of calves

“…The milk fed to calves can be either milk replacer, whole milk from the bulk tank, milk from recently calved cows or milk of lower quality (e.g. waste milk from cows with mastitis (Hayer et al., 2021 ) or from cows treated with antimicrobials (Mahendran et al., 2022 )), although this is not good agricultural practice. According to recent surveys, in 72.4% of farms in western Germany calves were fed waste milk (Hayer et al., 2021 ), and in 3.7% of farms in UK calves were provided with waste milk containing antimicrobials (Mahendran et al., 2022 ).…”

Characterisation of dairy female calf management practices in southern Chile

“…In Chilean farms, it could be suggested to employ calf-specific personnel that may lead to increasing the specialisations of skills in the staff and the ability of veterinary practices to target training courses. In the United Kingdom (Mahendran et al, 2022) the development and implementation of standard operating procedures in conjunction with veterinary practices is becoming more common and even a requirement for some dairy contracts and this could be applied in Chile in the near future.…”

“…In this study, the criterion for weaning partly agrees with studies from Europe. In the United Kingdom, farmers use age as the main weaning criteria, with an age ranging from 6 to 12 weeks (Mahendran et al, 2022). In Czech dairy herds, Stanek et al (2014) reported that calving in group pens predominated (67% of farms) and the main weaning criterion was age (61.7%) followed by intake of starter and concentrated feeds.…”