An examination of the effect of climatic housing and nutrition on the performance of calves

Williams, Peter Edmond Vaughan (1977) An examination of the effect of climatic housing and nutrition on the performance of calves. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Research was undertaken to examine the feasibility of rearing bought-in calves in climatic calf houses in the West of Scotland. An examination was also undertaken of the individual effects and the interactions between different levels of nutrition and the degree of protection afforded by climatic calf housing on the performance of Friesian type calves from approximately 6 to 160 days of age. Satisfactory levels of performance and daily live-weight gains on a par with those achieved by calves of similar type reared under similar management conditions in other areas of Great Britain were achieved by the climatically housed calves. Overall calf lesses represented 12% of the total purchased. When certain of the experimental trial conditions, which would be unacceptable in practice, were taken into account calf mortality was 7.9% which whilst not ideal was close to the mean level of 5.8% achieved by specialist bought-in calf rearers. Climatic calf housing was thus considered feasible for rearing young bought-in calves in the West of Scotland area. Differing designs of calf housing incorporating varying degrees of insulation raised the mean internal house temperature above ambient by a maximum of 3

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Adviser: A M Raven
• Keywords: Animal sciences
• Date of Award: 1977
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:1977-73894
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Jun 2019 08:56
• Last Modified: 14 Jun 2019 08:56
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/73894