The objective of this research was to determine if confinement of 8-day-old calves for varying lengths of time is associated with an increase in motivation to perform locomotor behaviours. Forty-eight Holstein heifer and bull calves were used in a factorial arrangement with tow crossed factors. Factor A was housing with two levels (individual confinement versus group pens) and factor B was hours in confinement with four levels (6, 12, 24, and 48 h). Individual confinement was in 1.06 m X 1.06 m pens, while group pens had a 3.68 m X 6.09 m outside run and a 3.68 m X 6.09 m covered area that also contained a 3.68 m X 2.44 m area bedded with wood shavings. The calves were placed on treatment when they were 8 2 days of age. At the end of the treatments, a blood sample was taken for plasma cortisol determination and lymphocyte counts and the calves were open-field tested for 5 min. Walk, trot, distance traveled and behaviours performed while standing during the open-field test were higher in the calves kept in group pens, but were not influenced by hours in treatment. Valves confined for 48 h had greater incidences of kicking and falling. Lymphocyte count was lower in the calves confined for 12 h, but there was not a trend across hours in confinement that indicated a consistent effect. Housing or hours in treatment did not affect canter, buck, buck-kick, rear, stumble, vocalization and cortisol concentrations. The interaction between hours in treatment and housing was not significant for any of the variables tested. This study suggested that 2 days may not have been enough time for the effects of close confinement to influence motivation in young calves, or that calves averaging 8 days of age may be too young to display increased motivation for lomotor activity. Confinement of such young calves actually inhibits locomotor activity in open-filed tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The objective of this research was to determine if confinement of 8-day-old calves for varying lengths of time is associated with an increase in motivation to perform locomotor behaviours. Forty-eight Holstein heifer and bull calves were used in a factorial arrangement with tow crossed factors. Factor A was housing with two levels (individual confinement versus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[928],"tags":[2988,8882,10033,13816,16845,231,45,19644,20007,47,20792,13370,10859,16262,92,14980,23411,20911,4874,1579,26223,52,8742],"class_list":["post-5114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-activitybehaviourbullcalfcalvesconfinementcortisoldairy-calfdairy-calvesexercisegrouphousinglocomotor-behaviourmotivationopen-field-testvocalization","tag-al","tag-arc","tag-ass","tag-close","tag-cover","tag-dairy","tag-dd","tag-gh","tag-housing","tag-influence","tag-ken","tag-nat","tag-pl","tag-plasma","tag-search","tag-splay","tag-t","tag-tan","tag-test","tag-the-effects","tag-treatment","tag-vocal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}