Impact of Social Housing Systems on Cognitive Behavioral Responses of Murrah Calves

Abstract

Individual housing and early separation from the dam are common management practices in dairy calf rearing, but limited social contact may influence behavioural development and cognitive performance. This study evaluated the effect of pre-weaning social housing on cognitive behavioural responses in Murrah calves under Indian buffalo-management conditions. Eighteen healthy Murrah buffalo calves, aged 6 days, were randomly allocated to individual, pair or group housing, with six calves per treatment. From 3 weeks of age, calves were habituated to a T-maze and subsequently tested using colour discrimination and reversal-learning tasks. In the initial discrimination task, calves were trained to associate a white visual cue with a milk reward until they achieved at least 10 correct responses out of 12 trials across 3 consecutive sessions. In the reversal-learning phase, the reward contingency was changed, and calves were trained until they met the same response threshold across 7 consecutive sessions. Housing system significantly affected the number of sessions required to reach criterion. Individually housed calves required more sessions than group-housed calves during initial learning and more sessions than both pair- and group-housed calves during reversal learning. Pair- and group-housed calves showed comparable performance. These findings indicate that early social housing was associated with improved learning efficiency and behavioural flexibility in Murrah calves, whereas individual housing was associated with poorer cognitive performance.