Hessle, Anna
- Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2009Peer reviewed
Effects of social learning on foraging behaviour and live weight gain in first-season grazing calves
Hessle, Anna
Abstract
When livestock are turned out to semi-natural grasslands, an effective onset of grazing is important both for animal productivity and for defoliation of the sward, which preserve the biodiversity of the vegetation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether foraging behaviour of naive calves turned out to pasture was more intense, with a resulting diminished live weight loss, when experienced cattle accompanied them acting as social models. Twenty-six first-season grazing (FSG) dairy calves, allocated to groups with or without company of older, grazing-experienced steers, were turned out to semi-natural grasslands. Cattle behaviour was automatically recorded for 24 h during the first day on pasture and during 24 h after I month. Furthermore, the average live weight changes for the first day and for the first month on pasture were calculated. Calves turned out to pasture accompanied by grazing-experienced steers had similar grazing times (on average 42.7% of the day) to calves turned out to pasture in groups without older steers, but they had higher grazing activity during the first day on pasture (score 124 vs. 99, P = 0.005). Live weight changes were similar in calves kept with as in calves kept without company of grazing-experienced steers (-4.60 kg for the first day and -0.30 kg day(-1) for the first month on pasture). In conclusion, the company of grazing-experienced conspecifics resulted in higher grazing activity in naive calves, but their time spent grazing and live weight gains were unmodified. Hence, in this limited study we found no major positive effects on production of using grazing-experienced cattle as company to FSG calves on semi-natural grasslands. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Naive grazer; Turn-out; Experience; Foraging; Activity; Weight gain
Published in
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
2009, volume: 116, number: 2-4, pages: 150-155
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
UKÄ Subject classification
Animal and Dairy Science
Veterinary Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2008.08.004
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/61351