Dairy calves are typically separated from cows within hours of birth and reared in individual or group housing, with welfare implications around social deprivation, play behaviour, and milk feeding regimes.
Individually housed calves cannot engage in social play, grooming, or comfort-seeking with conspecifics — all highly motivated natural behaviours. Cross-sucking on pen mates indicates severe hunger motivation in restricted-fed calves. Early social housing improves stress resilience, learning ability, and long-term cow productivity. Separation from the cow within hours of birth causes acute distress in both parties. Extended cow-calf contact systems are being trialled but face disease management challenges in conventional systems.