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Social housing improves dairy calves’ performance in a competition test
Borealis
Suchon, Malina; Ede, Thomas; Vandresen, Bianca; von Keyserlingk, M.A.G — 2023-04-21 This study aimed to investigate the impact of early-life social housing on dairy calves' competitive skills. Calves were housed either individually (n=9) or in pairs (n=9). After 14 d of housing treatment, calves underwent a competition test for 5 d against a competitor. Pair housed calves performed better than individually housed calves: throughout the competition days, individually housed calves increased their latency to approach the milk bottle and decreased their time spent drinking in contrast to pair housed calves which exhibited stable latencies to reach the milk bottle and increased their time drinking. To control for the influence of personality on their competitive abilities, all calves were subjected to personality tests assessing boldness before being exposed to the housing treatment. Bolder calves tended to approach the milk bottle faster. Our results provide additional evidence of the beneficial effects of social housing on dairy calves’ behavioral development.
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Replication Data for: Early pain experiences in dairy calves on pain sensitivity later in life
Borealis
Osório-Santos, Zimbábwe; Ede, Thomas; Hötzel, Maria José; Weary, D.M; von Keyserlingk, M.A.G — 2024-02-02 In humans, early painful experiences can increase pain sensitivity later in life, but little is known regarding this phenomenon in cattle. This study assessed if a painful event early in life affects later pain sensitivity in 40-d-old calves. Holstein calves (n = 26) were randomly assigned to control or treatment conditions, blocked within sex and birth weight. At 9.5 ± 1.8 d old, treatment calves had 1 horn bud disbudded using caustic paste, whereas control calves had 1 horn sham disbudded; in both cases, multimodal pain control was provided. All calves had the contralateral horn bud disbudded using a hot iron 4 wk later, again with multimodal pain control. Mechani- cal nociceptive responses were assessed weekly using an algometer applied adjacent to both horn buds and on the rump, beginning 3 d before the first disbudding and ending 30 d after the second disbudding. Following the second disbudding, both groups of calves showed evidence of increased sensitivity (i.e., algometer pressure declined 3.69 ± 0.60 √N to 2.13 ± 0.70 √N) on the contralateral bud, but there was no difference between the control group and the treatment groups. An interaction between treatment and time, likely driven by treatment differences, was found on the rump when tested 5 h after the second disbudding event. These responses are not consistent with the hypothesis that an early pain experience results in increased sensitivity to later painful experiences.
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Can a social partner alleviate conditioned place aversion caused by isolation and pain in dairy calves?
Borealis
Nogues, Emeline; Ede, Thomas; Woodroffe, Raphaela E.; Weary, D.M; von Keyserlingk, M.A.G — 2023-07-31 Social buffering occurs when the presence of a partner mitigates the stress response of an individual. In two experiments, we assessed the effects of social buffering in dairy calves, with and without a known conspecific, when either subjected to isolation from the larger group (Experiment 1; n = 12) or to recovery from the painful procedure of hot-iron disbudding (Experiment 2; n = 25). In Experiment 2, we also tested whether the level of fearfulness of each calf and the frequency of interactions between the two calves affected the degree of buffering. In both experiments the effects of buffering were assessed using a conditioned place aversion paradigm, with the prediction that calves would find experiences less aversive when exposed to the stressor with a conspecific. All calves were exposed to two conditioning treatments (i.e., exposed alone or with a ‘support’ partner), each session lasted 6 h each and were 48 h apart. Conditioned place aversion tests (with calves tested alone) occurred at 48, 72, 96 h after the second treatment. We found no evidence of social buffering for responses to either isolation from the group or the recovery from the painful experience. The number of physical interactions between the calves during treatment and the fearfulness of the calves also did not account for the individual variation observed.

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(Author: Ede, Thomas)

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