Influence of artificial vs. mother-bonded rearing on sucking behaviour, health and weight gain in calves

Performance of Murrah Buffalo and their Calves under Weaning and Suckling System

“…The present results were in accordance to the Sanh et al, 1997;Mejia et al, 1998;Roth et al, 2009. Smijisha (2007 concluded that stimulated natural suckling may help to reach satiety and calves allowed to suckle had a higher level of oxytocin compared to bucket-fed calves (Lupoli et al, 2001) which may have also stimulated the higher weight gain in suckled group of calves.…”

Suckling, weaning, and the development of oral behaviours in dairy calves

“…they had access to more objects in their environment (cubicles bars for instance). By contrast suckled calves spent less time sucking other calves or objects, a result consistent with those of Roth et al (2009). Cross-sucking can be due to the high motivation of calves to suck that is not satisfied when they are fed milk artificially (de Passillé, 2001).…”

“…sucking a teat or ingestive chewing (Wiepkema et al, 1987;Sato and Abe, 1993;Veissier et al, 1998). They are also less common when calves are with their dams, even when they are not suckled (Krohn et al, 1999;Fröberg et al, 2008;Roth et al, 2009).…”

Effects of mother versus artificial rearing during the first 12 weeks of life on challenge responses of dairy cows

“…Calves with contact with the mother for 2-12 weeks showed higher social activity and less abnormal oral behaviour, e.g. cross-sucking, than those separated from the mother within the first 24 h (Flower and Weary, 2001;Fröberg and Lidfors, 2009;Roth, 2008;Roth et al, 2009a;Wagner et al, 2013). Furthermore, calves that were reared in a pen together with their dams for 4 weeks and fed via bucket struggled less during a restraint test than single-or pair-reared calves (Duve et al, 2012).…”