The effect of pair housing on dairy calf health, performance, and behavior

Individual housing of dairy calves prevails in Europe and North America despite its negative effects on calf development. One the main reasons is that farmers find individual more practical than group housing. A compromise between practice welfare could be pairs. Therefore, we aimed to compare health, feed intake, growth, behavior a novel arena 22 individually (INDI) 44 pair-housed were randomly assigned treatment. Diarrhea respiratory problems recorded every day for period 49 d. Intake starter milk measured 48 d, respectively. Calf body weight gains calculated as average daily gain. Calves tested at 11 18 their was according an ethogram including 8 behavioral categories. Behavioral categories first diminished by principal component (PC) analysis. We found 2 PC explained 66% total variation behavior. Movement-related behaviors (activity, play, crossing stair) loaded positively PC1, PC2 had positive loading self-grooming exploration. There no or The INDI higher PC1 scores calves, indicating rebound effect movement. Our results are consistent with other studies pair growth compared individually-housed calves. movement-related implies causes activity deprivation second week age.