Investigating the impact of early life housing on play behaviour in dairy calves

McKay, Ciara (2025) Investigating the impact of early life housing on play behaviour in dairy calves. MVM(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Play behaviour is widely recognised as an indicator of positive welfare states in dairy calves but it’s measurement has traditionally relied on direct behavioural observations which are labour intensive and not always suitable for studies conducted on farms. The growth of wearable accelerometer technology within the farming industry has given researchers a practical opportunity to measure play behaviour in real-time. By utilising accelerometer technology to measure calf play, the welfare impacts of different calf management systems can be easily compared. The early life housing experience of dairy calves is known to impact their development, but the immediate and long-term impacts on play behaviour are not well understood.

This research first validated IceTag accelerometer technology (Peacock Technology, UK) to measure play behaviour in weaned dairy calves. Eight female dairy calves aged three to five months old were monitored using leg-mounted accelerometers and closed circuit television cameras for a 48-hour recording period. The validation process evaluated the correlation between visual observations of weaned calf play and IceTag motion index (MI) data output, then used classification and regression tree analysis to establish a MI threshold value which would best indicate play. A MI value of ≥ 69 was established as the optimum threshold to detect play behaviour in weaned dairy calves (sensitivity = 94.4%; specificity = 93.6%; balanced accuracy = 94.0%).

The second part of this study utilised accelerometer technology to measure the immediate and long-term welfare impacts of different early life dairy calf housing conditions. A total of 96 female dairy calves were recruited from four Scottish dairy farms and assigned to individual, paired or group housing at birth. Play behaviour was measured using IceTags in the same cohort of calves for two 48-hour recording periods: neonatal (calves aged 24 to 72 hours old) and weaned (calves aged three to five months old). Mixed effect negative binomial regression models were used to assess the impact of early life social housing on neonatal calf play behaviour and to assess the impact of early life social housing and early life playfulness on weaned calf play behaviour. Compared to calves housed individually, calves housed in pairs (IRR = 1.29; p = 0.002) and calves housed in groups (IRR =1.43; p < 0.001) performed significantly more neonatal play. No difference in neonatal play was found between calves housed in pairs versus calves housed in groups (IRR = 1.11; p = 0.334). No significant effect of previous early life housing type nor early life playfulness was found on weaned calf play.

Collectively, the results presented in this study demonstrate that accelerometer technology can be utilised to measure welfare in dairy calves under various management systems. This study highlights the importance of validating accelerometer devices to measure animal play behaviour in a research setting and presents the potential for extension of this technology into a commercial environment for use as a farm-based welfare monitoring tool. The findings of this work contribute to the growing body of evidence indicating that social housing provides calves with a more positive early life experience than individual housing. Though no relationship between early life experience and play behaviour in weaned calves was found, this study highlights the need for further research to understand the management factors which influence weaned calf play.

• Item Type: Thesis (MVM(R))
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Subjects: S Agriculture > SF Animal culture; S Agriculture > SF Animal culture > SF600 Veterinary Medicine
• Colleges/Schools: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine > Veterinary Biosciences
• Funder's Name: Hannah Dairy Research Foundation (HDRF) (HANNARES)
• Supervisor's Name: Ellis, Dr. Kathryn, Haskell, Professor Marie and Gladden, Dr. Nicola
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85224
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 19 Jun 2025 07:24
• Last Modified: 19 Jun 2025 07:26
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85224
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85224

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