Evaluating housing systems for veal calves.

Abstract

Limitations of space, diet, and social environment can impair the welfare of veal calves reared in intensive farms compared with those calves allowed to pasture with their dams. In intensive farms most of the animals are housed in tether stalls or in crates. Stalls that greatly restrict the behavior of calves are not an adequate housing system. If the crates are small enough to prevent calves from lying in a comfortable position, they also impair the welfare of calves and lower their growth rate and disease resistance. Social contacts are limited in crates with solid partitions, but even if this social isolation seems unnecessary, it does not have the long-term effects on social and maternal behavior previously described. Because mortality rate is lower in crates than in group pens, and considering the time a calf spends grooming itself and lying with its legs stretched, large crates with open partitions are an acceptable alternative to group housing. However, improving group pens by providing adequate floors and automated feeding systems should make that type of housing better than crates. Other types of veal production such as the rearing of the calves by their dams could also be promoted. Other factors interact with housing system to affect the welfare status of veal calves. Milk-only diets should be avoided, and it is necessary to provide calves with adequate roughage as a way to enrich their environment. Friesian calves adapt better to veal calf operations than do Salers calves, and this difference between breeds must be considered when designing housing systems. The age of veal calves at slaughter should be considered to avoid maintaining calves in a preruminant physiological state beyond the point of the naturally occurring transition.