Effects of Degree and Timing of Social Housing on Reversal Learning and Response to Novel Objects in Dairy Calves
نویسندگان
چکیده
Rodents and primates deprived of early social contact exhibit deficits in learning and behavioural flexibility. They often also exhibit apparent signs of elevated anxiety, although the relationship between these effects has not been studied. To investigate whether dairy calves are similarly affected, we first compared calves housed in standard individual pens (n = 7) to those housed in a dynamic group with access to their mothers (n = 8). All calves learned to approach the correct stimulus in a visual discrimination task. Only one individually housed calf was able to re-learn the task when the stimuli were reversed, compared to all but one calf from the group. A second experiment investigated whether this effect might be explained by anxiety in individually housed animals interfering with their learning, and tested varying degrees of social contact in addition to the complex group: pair housing beginning early (approximately 6 days old) and late (6 weeks old). Again, fewer individually reared calves learned the reversal task (2 of 10 or 20%) compared to early paired and grouped calves (16 of 21 or 76% of calves). Late paired calves had intermediate success. Individually housed calves were slower to touch novel objects, but the magnitude of the fear response did not correlate with reversal performance. We conclude that individually housed calves have learning deficits, but these deficits were not likely associated with increased anxiety.
منابع مشابه
Social Housing Improves Dairy Calves' Performance in Two Cognitive Tests
Early social housing is known to benefit cognitive development in laboratory animals. Pre-weaned dairy calves are typically separated from their dam immediately after birth and housed alone, but no work to date has addressed the effect of individual housing on cognitive performance of these animals. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of individual versus social housing on two me...
متن کاملEffects of level of social contact on dairy calf behavior and health.
Housing preweaned dairy calves in pairs rather than individually has been found to positively affect behavioral responses in novel social and environmental situations, but concerns have been raised that close contact among very young animals may impair their health. In previous studies, the level of social contact permitted in individual housing has been auditory, visual, or physical contact. I...
متن کاملEffects of oral iron supplementation on haematocrit, live weight gain and health in neonatal dairy calves
Forty neonate calves were used in this study. The animals were divided into two treatment (n = 20) andcontrol (n = 20) groups. In the treatment group, oral iron as ferrous sulphate was supplemented to each calf atthe dose of 150 mg/day for 28 days, from the birthday. Blood sampling was taken from jugular veinimmediately after birth and on days 7, 14, 21 and 28 after birth. Significant differenc...
متن کاملResponse of lactating dairy ruminant to different profiles of dietary calcium soaps of fatty acids
Nutrition has a significant effect on reproduction and lactation in Ruminant. Supply of require nutrient of dairy cows and ewes in early lactation is the main challenges that will be considered, since in most cases the animals facing negative energy balance after calving and the beginning of the period of lactation. Negative energy balance may sometimes result in reduced livestock production an...
متن کاملResponse of lactating dairy ruminant to different profiles of dietary calcium soaps of fatty acids
Nutrition has a significant effect on reproduction and lactation in Ruminant. Supply of require nutrient of dairy cows and ewes in early lactation is the main challenges that will be considered, since in most cases the animals facing negative energy balance after calving and the beginning of the period of lactation. Negative energy balance may sometimes result in reduced livestock production an...
متن کامل