DSD 6.10 | Summary of Social Housing for Calves

DSD 6.10 | Summary of Social Housing for Calves

From Dairy Science Digest by reaganbluel

October 16, 2025 · 30 min · Episode 64

About this episode

This episode discusses the research on paired and group housing for pre-weaned calves and its implications for dairy production.

Individual housing for pre-weaned calves has long been gold standard, since it was first introduced in the 40s. However, interest has emerged around paired and group housing for this phase of production. Intermittent research on this topic has been published over the past 25 years but has never been compiled, until now. Dr. Katarina Buckova from IA State University, and her team combed through research databases and compiled the results of several projects on paired housing, compared to individually housed calves. Research on production, health and behavior illuminated gaps in knowledge needed for producers to effectively move forward on this production practice. If your farm is considering paired or group housing, listen in for a compelling discussion about the impacts, perceived and measured, about how this calf development concept could impact the future of your herd. Topics of discussion 1:25 Introduction of Dr. Katarina Buckova 3:00 Why review / summarize paired housing research? 4:40 What age were calves paired 6:40 Performance & Health based observations of paired housing7:49 Body weight gain 8:58 Table 11 – Summary of all metrics 10:04 Volume of milk fed 11:31 Feed…

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Katarina Buckova

Topics covered

  • calf housing
  • paired housing
  • group housing
  • calf development
  • animal behavior
  • dairy production

Keywords

  • calves
  • housing
  • production
  • health
  • behavior
  • milk fed
  • feed conversion

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: IA State University

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