Impacts of self- and cross-sucking on cattle health and performance

Abstract

Background:Improvement of dairy farms economics requires intensification, automatic milking, and artificial rearing methods. The ability to express normal behavior is one of the five freedoms to achieve animal welfare, whereas the display of abnormal behaviors is considered as an indicator of poor welfare. Cross-sucking is defined as sucking any body parts of pen-mate calves, whereas inter-sucking in cows is defined as sucking the udder or udder area. Previous studies showed that self- and cross-sucking during the calf-hood period could be a causal factor of milk sucking in adulthood.Aim:To investigate the effects of cross-sucking among calves and inter-sucking in cows on animal health status and performance.Materials and Methods:Gathering information from customized questionnaires, the study of the breeding records, recording of self- and cross-sucking behaviors, and health status of calves till weaning, and dairy cows before milking were performed in two governmental farms under the same managemental conditions in Sohag and Qena governorates.Results:Cross-sucking appeared in calves at the 2nd week of age followed by abscesses at ears and navels that were observed within cross-sucker calves. Milk sucking was higher in primiparous than multiparous cows during the second lactation period, as primiparous cows start to suck mostly around the 4th month of milking. Mastitis and elongation of the front teats were observed in sucker cows. Suffered animals had body condition scoring 3.5 or less. Interestingly, most of the cows displaying self-sucking were sucking another cow and were experienced self- or cross-sucking in their calf-hood. The use of pronged nose-rings was ineffective in preventing milk sucking and all cows were ultimately culled at the end of the season.Conclusion:The results of this study demonstrate the health problems of abnormal oral behaviors in terms of developed ears and navels abscesses in cross-sucker calves, and mastitis and teat deformities in milk-sucker cows. Furthermore, indexes that lead to oral satisfaction should be taken in priorities of farm managers to effectively reduce or prevent cross-sucking in calves. Culling of cows and heifers suffering from sucking would be the ultimate uneconomic alternative in case of persistent suckers.

Effects of different forage to concentrate ratios on performance, plasma metabolites, and feeding behaviour of weaned dairy calves from 70 to 120 days of age

“…Therefore, greater faecal score in these calves could be partially attributed to higher non-nutritive oral behaviour, possibly due to lower fibre digestibility and numerically poor energy utilisation efficiency. In confirmation of our results, it has been shown that crosssucking in calves as a non-nutritive oral behaviour was associated with reduced BW at weaning (Mahmoud et al 2016). Moreover, there was a lesser amount of time devoted to lying in calves fed F35 diets.…”

Influence of Age on Ingestive Behaviour, Suckling Disorders, Productive Traits, Milk Constituent and Serum Cortisol Level of Friesian Dairy Cows

“…The use of pronged nose-rings was effective in preventing milk sucking and all cows were must culled at the end of the season. The results in this paper suggested that the tongue rolling, ear and nose suckling were increased with age , these results were in disagreement with (Karatzias et al, 1995) and ( Mahmoud et al, 2016) as they stated that tongue rolling in dairy cows due to manganese deficiency and not affected by the age and also, ear suckling occurred in calves at the 2 nd week of age followed by abscesses at ears. Licking of the manager was decreased with advanced age.…”

“…As well as, Mahmoud, et al (2016) mentioned that milk sucking was higher in primiparous than multiparous cows during the second lactation period, as primiparous cows start to suck mostly around the 4 th month of milking. Mastitis and elongation of the front teats were observed in sucker cows.…”

Effects of ad libitum milk replacer feeding and butyrate supplementation on behavior, immune status, and health of Holstein calves in the postnatal period

“…However, the discussion on the extent of the milk feeding level is still ongoing. Restricted milk feeding to less than 6 L/d in 2 daily portions by bucket is still common (Hill et al, 2016) but leads to abnormal behavior, such as cross-sucking and subsequent health problems (Hammon et al, 2002;Khan et al, 2011;Mahmoud et al, 2016). The opposite is true in beef production, where calves are allowed to drink colostrum and milk ad libitum and are not forced to drink the daily ration in 2 meals (Egli and Blum, 1998;Schiessler et al, 2002;Miller-Cushon and DeVries, 2015).…”