Reducing milk amounts to calves negatively affects cognitive performance
Reducing the amount of milk given to calves makes it hard for them to concentrate and learn. This is the conclusion reached by an article published in the journal Biology Letters on Jan. 18, 2023. The article points out that the impact on the cognitive abilities of calves is consistent with negative feelings of hunger.
Milk calves are commonly weaned at a younger age than they would naturally be, and the researchers wanted to study how this change in diet affects the animals' subjective experience.
To test the impact, the researchers conducted two experiments using a modified perforated plate test. In the first experiment, calves had to remember the location of four milk-containing bottles placed between 11 empty bottles.
In the second experiment, bottles containing milk were moved and calves had to relearn where the bottles were. During the experiments, the amount of milk supplied to calves was reduced.
Both experiments showed that cognitive performance declined. When milk allocation was reduced, calves found it harder to remember which bottles contained milk and took longer to learn the new locations when the bottles moved.
The study does not directly prove that calves felt too hungry to concentrate and learn, but the researchers concluded that the results are consistent with negative feelings of hunger. They cite an increase in vocalizations as additional evidence of negative emotions.
Dr Ben Lecorps, corresponding author of the study, said that researchers need to know more about what calves feel if we want to change usual farming practices to improve their welfare.
“Although we may never be able to fully understand what a calf feels or thinks, this type of study brings us closer to this goal,” he said.
Lecorps added that the results support the growing body of evidence that weaning from milk can induce hunger, particularly when animals are forced to switch to solid foods — by decreasing the amount of milk — abruptly.
“Our study also shows that it can be difficult for calves to learn new tasks when they experience high levels of hunger, which is concerning because it can slow down how quickly they learn to feed from another source," he said.
Lecorps is a professor of animal welfare at Bristol Veterinary School. He said that he intends to continue studying the topic with his postgraduate students. The next step is to compare the cognitive abilities of calves fed restricted amounts of milk with unrestricted milk-fed calves.
Benjamin Lecorps, Raphaela E. Woodroffe, Marina A.G. von Keyserlingk and Daniel M. Weary. "Hunger affects cognitive performance of dairy calves." Biology Letters. Volume 19, Issue 1. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0475
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