Relationship between locomotor play of dairy calves and their weight gains and energy intakes around weaning

Abstract

Play behaviour has been proposed as a measure of good welfare in growing animals and locomotor play by calves is often reduced after weaning off milk. Adjusting weaning age according to individual calves' abilities to eat solid feed maintains energy intake and weight gain during weaning. We investigated the effects of this method of weaning on locomotor play of calves and the relationship between locomotor play and energy intake and weight gains. We measured the running behaviour of 56 Holstein heifer calves before and after weaning. Calves were housed in groups of eight, fed milk, grain starter and hay from automated feeders. Weaning began when their voluntary intake of grain starter reached either 200 or 400 g/day, and weaning was completed when starter intake reached either 800 or 1600 g/day. Before weaning, older calves ran less than young ones; and the duration of running correlated with weight gains and digestible energy intake. Immediately after weaning, digestible energy intake and locomotor play decreased but no correlation was observed between these variables. One week after weaning, the duration of running was correlated with both energy intake and weight gain. Digestible energy intake increased but locomotor play continued to decrease. The amount of running a calf does after weaning partly reflects energy intake and weight gain, supporting suggestions that locomotor play is good indicator of welfare and fitness of growing animals. However, the decline in locomotor play following weaning is not solely due to decreased energy intake.

Play and optimal welfare: Does play indicate the presence of positive affective states?

“…Food availability has thus repeatedly been shown to be a strong determinant of play in a variety of wild and captive ungulates, primates, rodents, and carnivores (reviewed in . For example, prematurely weaning dairy calves induced sharp spikes in vocalizations and other indicators of negative affect (Rushen et al, 2016), and additionally suppressed locomotor play to a degree correlated with the associated decrease in daily energy intake (Miguel-Pacheco et al, 2015;Rushen et al, 2016). Locomotor play was also reduced by low milk allowance in calves drinking from artificial milk feeders (Duve et al, 2012;Jensen et al, 2015); and training calves to use these feeders while still with their mothers prevented both the reduced energy intake and decreased play after weaning (Rushen et al, 2016).…”

“…Proponents of this view thus argue that high frequencies of play in animals indicate good or positive welfare (e.g. Duve et al, 2012;Held an Jensen et al, 1998;marmosetcare.com, 2017;Miguel-Pacheco et al, 2015); positive emotions or positive affective states (e.g. Clegg and Butterworth, 2017;Green and Mellor, 2011;Lampe et al, 2017;Mellor, 2012;Minero et al, 2016;Rushen and de Passillé, 2012;Singh et al, 2017); a -(e.g.…”

Negative play contagion in calves

“…In this study, we effectively manipulated calf locomotor play with different milk allowances in uniform groups, replicating the increase in spontaneous locomotor play in calves fed higher amounts of milk (9 l per day 32 or 12 l per day 25 ) in comparison with lower amounts of milk (5 l per day 32 or 6 l per day 25 ) reported in previous studies. Both previous studies linked the increase in play with higher digestible energy (DE) intake, a relationship that is substantiated with a positive correlation of both, DE intake and weight gain, with running, a measure of calf locomotor play 33 . Indeed, play consumes a certain amount of energy in ungulates, e.g.…”

“…In addition to milk and contagion effects, play behaviour of calves was affected by age. In previous studies, the relationship of play and energy intake was either weaker in older calves when weaned 33 or it was only found at younger ages (two 32 and three 25 weeks old). In older calves the duration of locomotor play either decreased after reducing the milk allowance (six weeks old) 32 or increased when calves compensated a low milk allowance with solid food, therewith increasing their DE intake (five weeks old) 25 .…”

Discriminating spontaneous locomotor play of dairy calves using accelerometers

“…In calves, play behavior is a promising indicator to assess both compromised welfare-for example, reduced play due to pain after disbudding (Mintline et al, 2013) or hunger after weaning off milk (Krachun et al, 2010;Miguel-Pacheco et al, 2015)-and enhanced welfare, such as increased play when housed in groups (Valníčková et al, 2015). However, calves perform spontaneous play for only a few minutes per day (Jensen et al, 2015) at irregular intervals (Fraser and Duncan, 1998).…”