Our aim was to study how calves' sleep could be affected by the milk feeding and housing methods.



We concluded that possibility to suck milk increased the amount of calves' behavioural quiet sleep and sleepiness after feeding, possibly due to suck-induced hormonal effects

Hepola, H.

Hänninen, L.

Khalili, H.

Raussi, S.

Saloniemi, H.

Sariola, J.

English

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                                       NORDIC ISAE 2006                Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Symposium of the                              International Society for Applied Ethology                                  18-19 January 2006                                   Espoo, Finland         SSES                                          Edited by FINNISH SOCIETY FOR                                Hannu T. Korhonen, Satu Raussi,                        APPLIED ETHOLOGY                                    Laura Hänninen & Matti Heikkilä     The effect of milk feeding method on calves´ behavioural sleep  Hänninen, L.*1, Hepola, H. *2, Raussi, S. *1, Sariola, J. 3, Khalili, H. 3, Saloniemi, H. *1 * Research Centre for Animal Welfare 1 Dept of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki 2 Dept of Animal Science, University of Helsinki 3 Agri-Food Finland  Our aim was to study how calves´ sleep could be affected by the milk feeding and housing methods. Forty-one calves were housed for four days p.p. either with their dam (DAM), or individually fed trough a teat-bucket (TEAT) or an open bucket (BUCKET). DAM calves suckled their dam freely and BUCKET and TEAT calves received colostrum 4 * 2 litres per day. Calves’ resting behaviour and behavioural sleep were video recorded continuously during 2-3 days of age. Total time spent resting in different postures as well as behavioural sleep (BS) was recorded. Total BS was scored when calves had been at least 30 s resting head lifted still (quiet sleep, QS) or resting head against body or ground (active sleep, AS). In addition, mean daily latencies from the end of milk feeding to the start of BS were counted. The differences between TEAT and BUCKET or DAM were analysed with mixed models. No effect was found on total BS between treatments: The calves slept daily (mean ± se) 12hr 59 min ±1hr 38min. However, BUCKET calves had less QS than TEAT calves (378 ± 45min vs. 468 ± 45 min, p<0.05,) and also longer latencies from milk ingestion to BS compared to TEAT calves (22.9 ± 1.9 min vs. 16.2 ± 0.8 min, p<0.05). No statistical differences were found between TEAT and DAM calves. We concluded that possibility to suck milk increased the amount of calves´ behavioural quiet sleep and sleepiness after feeding, possibly due to suck-induced hormonal effects.                            4

The effect of milk feeding method on calves' behavioural sleep

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