Early pair housing increases solid feed intake and weight gains in dairy calves

Dairy calves have traditionally been kept in individual pens throughout the milk-feeding period. Social rearing is associated with increased solid feed intake and hence higher weight gains before and after weaning. Little is known about the effect of the age at which social housing begins. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of early versus late pairing on feeding behavior and weight gain before and after weaning. Holstein bull calves were reared individually (n=8 calves), or paired with another calf at 6 ± 3 d (n=8 pairs) or 43 ± 3 d of age (n=8 pairs). All calves were fed 8 L of milk/d for 4 wk, 6 L/d from 4 to 7 wk and then milk was reduced by 20%/d until calves were completely weaned at 8 wk of age. Calves were provided ad libitum access to calf starter and a total mixed ration (TMR). Body weight and feed intake were measured weekly from 3 to 10 wk of age. Intake of calf starter was significantly higher for the early-paired calves than for individually-reared and late-paired calves throughout the experimental period. At 10 wk of age, starter dry matter intake (DMI) averaged 2.20 ± 0.22 kg/d, 1.09 ± 0.25 kg/d and 1.26 ± 0.33 kg/d for early pair, late pair and individually housed calves, respectively. Intake of TMR did not differ among treatments, TMR dry matter intake (averaged 3.27 ± 0.72 kg/d, 3.08 ± 0.46 kg/d, and 2.89 ± 0.54 kg/d for the same three treatments). Calves in the early pair treatment also showed significantly higher average daily gain (ADG) over the experimental period (0.89 ± 0.04 kg/d versus 0.76 ± 0.04 kg/d and 0.73 ± 0.04 kg/d for the early paired, individual and late-paired calves, respectively). These results indicate that social housing soon after birth can increase weight gains and intake of solid feed

Effects of Oregano Essential Oil on Reduction of Weaning Age and Increasing Economic Efficiency in Holstein Friesian Calves

This study examined the potential use of oregano essentail oil as a milk additive for purposes of reducing weaning age; increasing economic efficiency; promoting calf growth as well as for improving blood parameters and general health status of Holstein Friesian calves. Twenty-eight Holstein Friesian calves were allocated into three groups: (a) Control calves were fed with whole milk (n=10), (b) OreganoLow (n=9), and (c) OreganoHigh (n=9) calves were fed with whole milk, plus 100 and 150 mg/l oregano essential oil per kg milk respectively. The amount of the milk offered on daily basis was calculated as 10% of each calf live weight and was given in two meal times. All calves were kept in individual pens during experimental period. Calves got weaned following the consumption of daily 900 g of concentrate feed over three consecutive days. Results demonstrated that OreganoLow calves marked improved growth performance, earlier weaning age and lower farm costs (P < 0.05) compared to Control and OreganoHigh calves. To conclude, dietary oregano essential oil seems to be a potential liquid feed additive that improves feed efficiency, health status, growth performance, and that reduces diarrhea incidents, hastens weaning age and minimizes dairy farm costs when used at the level of 100 mg/l

Revealed incomplete preferences under status-quo bias

We propose a theory of revealed preferences that allows both the status-quo bias and indecisiveness between any two alternatives

Bargaining with nonanonymous disagreement: Monotonic rules

We analyze bargaining situations where the agents' payoffs from disagreement depend on who among them breaks down the negotiations. We model such problems as a superset of the standard domain of Nash [Nash, J.F., 1950. The bargaining problem. Econometrica 18, 155-162]. On our extended domain, we analyze the implications of two central properties which, on the Nash domain, are known to be incompatible: strong monotonicity [Kalai, E., 1977. Proportional solutions to bargaining situations: Interpersonal utility comparisons. Econometrica 45, 1623-1630] and scale invariance [Nash, J.F., 1950. The bargaining problem. Econometrica 18, 155-162]. We first show that a class of monotone path rules uniquely satisfy strong monotonicity, scale invariance, weak Pareto optimality, and "continuity". We also show that dropping scale invariance from this list characterizes the whole class of monotone path rules. We then introduce a symmetric monotone path rule that we call the Cardinal Egalitarian rule and show that it is weakly Pareto optimal, strongly monotonic, scale invariant, symmetric and that it is the only rule to satisfy these properties on a class of two-agent problems.Disagreement matrix Axiomatic Monotonicity Monotone path rule Cardinal Egalitarian rule

The effect of straw bedding usage in loose housing systems on behavior and milk production of Holstein dairy cows

Thirty one Holstein Friesian cows were allocated to two groups. For a period of 7 weeks, twice a week, the behavior of each cow was registered for 9 h (07:00, 09.00,10.00,11.00,13:00,14.00,15.00,17.00 and 19:00 h) eating, drinking, ruminating, standing, resting, locomotor and other behaviors were recorded. The frequencies of eating, drinking, ruminating, standing, resting, locomotor and other behaviors for bedding and nonbedding usage groups were 32.9 and 34.6% (p>0.05); 1.7, 2.6% (p0.05); 20.5 and 28.4% (p0.05), respectively. The percentage of the eating behavior of cows of the bedding group at 9:00, 11:00, 13:00 and 17:00 observations were higher than the nonbedding group, while the other results at different observation hours show reverse results. As a result, the amount of time cows spend resting is higher in the bedding group, which is considered to significantly influence their comfort level. Resting behavior is an indicator of animal welfare and as such, this result suggests that bedding usage in loose housing systems provides a more comfortable and socially interactive environment that satisfies conditions of a more positive animal experience. © Medwell Journals, 2009

Production economies with single peaked preferences: pareto optimal and strategy proof rules

We analyze production economies with a linear technology and single peaked preferences. We first characterize the class of Pareto optimal (allocation) rules. We then characterize the subclass that additionally satisfies strategy proofness. Finally, we show that a uniform production rule uniquely satisfies Pareto optimality, strategy proofness, and equal treatment of equals. A similar result is obtained if equal treatment of equals is replaced with stronger fairness properties such as no-envy or anonymity. Our results can be applied to the problem of allocating central government funds among regional development agencies

A mechanism design approach to allocating central government funds among regional development agencies

To allocate central government funds among regional development agencies, we look for mechanisms that satisfy three important criteria: efficiency, (individual and coalitional) strategy proofness (a.k.a. dominant strategy incentive compatibility), and fairness. We show that only a uniform mechanism satisfies all three. We also show that all efficient and strategy proof mechanisms must function by assigning budget sets to the agencies and letting them freely choose their optimal bundle. In choosing these budget sets, the agencies’ private information has to be taken into account in a particular way. The only way to additionally satisfy a weak fairness requirement (regions with identical preferences should be treated equally) is to assign all agencies the same budget set, as does the uniform mechanism. Finally and maybe more importantly, we show that the central government should not impose constraints on how much to fund an activity (e.g. by reserving some funds only for a particular activity): otherwise, there are no efficient, strategy proof and fair mechanisms, no matter how small these constraints are

Bargaining with nonanonymous disagreement: monotonic rules

We analyze bargaining situations where the agents’ payoffs from disagreement depend on who among them breaks down the negotiations. We model such problems as a superset of the standard domain of Nash (1950). On our extended domain, we analyze the implications of two central properties which, on the Nash domain, are known to be incompatible: strong monotonicity (Kalai, 1977) and scale invariance (Nash, 1950). We first show that a class of monotone path rules uniquely satisfy strong monotonicity, scale invariance, weak Pareto optimality, and “continuity”. We also show that dropping scale invariance from this list characterizes the whole class of monotone path rules. We then introduce a symmetric monotone path rule that we call the Cardinal Egalitarian rule and show that it is weakly Pareto optimal, strongly monotonic, scale invariant, symmetric and that it is the only rule to satisfy these properties on a class of two-agent problems