DOI: 10.25338/b8pd3z
title: Data from: Early life access to hay does not affect later life oral behavior in feed restricted heifers

description: Dairy cattle are often raised in environments that lack natural feeding
 opportunities and perform abnormal repetitive behaviors (ARBs) as a
 result. Early life restriction can affect later life behavior. We
 evaluated whether access to hay in the milk-fed period would affect
 later-life behavior in heifers experiencing short-term feed restriction,
 and whether individuals were consistent in behavioral expression over
 time. We had 2 competing ideas about how this would unfold. First, being
 raised with hay, which reduced early life ARBs, could lead to fewer ARBs
 later in life. Alternatively, heifers that were raised without hay and
 performed more ARBs in early life may be more prepared for a later
 feed-restricted environment and could engage in fewer ARBs than those
 raised with hay. We studied 24 pair-housed Holstein heifers. As calves,
 they were fed milk and grain from 0-7 wk of age (Control) or given
 additional forage (Hay). Tongue rolling, tongue flicking, nonnutritive
 oral manipulation (NNOM) of pen fixtures, self-grooming, and drinking
 water were recorded for 12 h (08:00-20:00) during wk 4 and 6 of life using
 1-0 sampling at 5-s intervals. At the start of weaning at d 50, all calves
 were fed TMR. At d 60, all calves were fully weaned, and socially housed
 by d 65-70. After this point, all individuals were raised the same way,
 according to farm protocol, in groups that included both treatments. At
 12.4 ± 0.6 mo of age (mean ± SD), heifers were restricted to 50% of their
 ad-libitum TMR intake for 2 d as part of a short-term feed challenge.
 Using continuous video recording from 08:00-20:00 on the 2nd d of feed
 restriction, we scored time spent performing oral behaviors: the 5
 previously scored as calves, and intersucking, allogrooming, drinking
 urine, and NNOM of rice hull bedding and feed bins, specifically. We found
 that early life access to hay did not affect behavior performed by
 feed-restricted heifers 1 yr later. Most heifers performed a wide variety
 of behaviors that appeared abnormal. All heifers performed tongue rolling
 and NNOM, and at higher levels then when they were calves, while tongue
 flicks and self-grooming were performed less by heifers. Individual
 performance of NNOM and tongue rolling were not related across age classes
 (r = 0.17, 0.11, respectively), but tongue flicks tended to be correlated
 (r = 0.37). Intersucking was recorded in 67% of heifers, despite not being
 able to suckle a conspecific or dam in early life. Oral behaviors were
 highly variable across heifers, particularly tongue rolling and
 intersucking. Outliers, or extreme performance of oral behaviors relative
 to the rest of the population, were present in many behaviors. Most
 outliers were expressed by unique heifers that were not extreme in other
 categories. Overall, feeding calves hay during the milk-fed period did not
 affect later life performance of oral behaviors. The considerable
 variability, inconsistency across ages, and excessive performance of some
 behaviors raises additional questions about how these develop in cattle
 across life stages, and what we label “abnormal.”
description: The methods are described in the associated research
 publication. 
description: Please see the README file for these details.