Weaning impact: Evaluating growth, behavior, and production performance in Sahiwal cows and their calves

Initial periods of life, beginning before birth and lasting until weaning are characterised by the greatest neural plasticity. Early postnatal stress causes lasting changes in a variety of behaviours as well as stress reactivity. Cow-calf contact for an extended period is believed to improve the social skills of calves and has also been linked to improved productivity of mothers. This research was carried out to investigate the impact of weaning stress on the growth, behaviour and performance of Sahiwal cows and their calves. For this, 32 healthy cows and their calves were selected from the Sahiwal herd of the Livestock Research Centre, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute. They were grouped equally into two groups of 16 cow-calf pairs, which became the treatment groups (i.e., 'Fenceline' contact and 'Separated' groups). Calves in the fenceline contact group were allowed to suckle during the morning and evening milking and were housed together with fenceline separation. In the separated group, calves were separated from their mothers immediately after birth and fed colostrum and milk with a bottle throughout the experiment. Each calf was monitored for its growth and behavioural responses while cows were monitored for their production performance and behaviour. The results showed that growth and behaviour responses were better for fenceline calves compared to separated calves and also production performance and behaviour of Sahiwal cows provided with fenceline contact were better when compared to separated cows. From this study, it was concluded that fenceline cow-calf contact improved growth, behavioural response of calves; and production performance and behaviour of cows compared to separated cows and calves.