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Radka Šárová presents Poster 72 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 6: Free topics
144
Poster 72
THE EFFECT OF SEPARATION AND EARLY HOUSING ENVIRONMENT
ON WEIGHT GAIN IN DAIRY CATTLE
R. Šárová 1 , I. Stěhulová 1 , M. Špinka 1 , P. Firla 2 , L. Máchová 1
1 Department of Ethology, Institute of Animal Science, Pratelstvi 815, Praha 104 00, Czech Republic
2 Experimental Farm, Institute of Animal Science, Pratelstvi 815, Praha 104 00, Czech Republic
Prevailing practice in Czech dairy herds is to separate the calf from the mother immediately after
birth and then house them individually for several weeks. It would be more natural to leave the
calves with their mothers for a few days and then house them in groups, but real welfare benefits of
these alternatives are not well understood.
We evaluated the effect of calves’ age at separation and housing of calves after separation on their
weight gain. Forty dairy calves were randomly allocated to one of 4 treatments in a crossed design.
The calves were either separated on Day 0 or Day 4; and housed either individually or in groups of
four animals between Day 7 and Week 8. (All calves were housed in individual pens between
separation and Day 7).
We found that calves kept with mothers had significantly higher weight gain (5.58±0.77 kg,
mean±S.E.) up to separation than calves separated immediately (0.96±1.05 kg) (F1,30=13.19,
p