Vol. 9, Issue 2 (2020)

Author(s):
Komal and Pawan Singh

Abstract:
Dairy calves are separated from the dam soon after birth and housed in individual pens. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of social interaction on performance of Sahiwal calves. For this, six days old Sahiwal calves (n=24) were selected from Sahiwal herd of National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India and divided initially into two groups i.e. individually housed (group 1, having 16 calves) and group housed (group 2, having 8 calves). After six weeks of age, third group was formed by shifting calves (n=8) from group 1 i.e. late pair housed (group 3, having 4 pairs). Total dry matter intake, average daily gain and health parameters were also analysed by using SPSS 21. Results revealed that treatment groups did not have significant effect on total dry matter intake, average daily gain and growth of calves. However, cases of illness was slightly higher in group housed calves. So, overall it can be concluded that there was less impact of social housing on performance of calves.