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Lookup NU author(s): Emma Jensen, Professor Melissa BatesonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2024. When weaning offspring, female mammals limit nursing opportunities. This study aimed to investigate whether imposing a gradual reduction in daily contact time, by separating cows from their calves as an attempt to stimulate weaning, reduced dairy cows’ motivation to nurse their calves. For seven weeks, 84 Holstein–Friesian cow-calf pairs were housed with either full-time (23 h contact/d), part-time (10 h contact/d), or no contact. In the following two weeks, half of full- and part-time pairs were subjected to reduced contact (50% of initial contact in week 8, 25% of initial contact in week 9), while the other half continued with unchanged contact. In weeks 8 and 9, cows’ motivation to obtain full contact to and opportunity to nurse their calves was measured using weighted push gates using a novel maximum price paid method providing an alternative choice to the cows to reduce frustration. Cows with reduced calf contact were more motivated than cows with unchanged contact; however, cows used the alternative choice less than expected. The results show that cows’ motivation for full calf contact and opportunity to nurse increases when daily calf contact is reduced, illustrating that dairy cows are motivated to continue nursing their 9- to 10-week-old calves.
Author(s): Jensen EH, Bateson M, Neave HW, Rault J-L, Jensen MB
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Scientific Reports
Year: 2024
Volume: 14
Issue: 1
Online publication date: 14/06/2024
Acceptance date: 04/06/2024
Date deposited: 24/06/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2045-2322
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-64038-z
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-64038-z
PubMed id: 38877087
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