Calf Housing

Effective calf housing goes beyond providing basic shelter – it creates an environment that supports natural behaviours, minimises disease risk, and optimises growth potential. By focusing on calf comfort through appropriate bedding, adequate space, proper ventilation, and meaningful enrichment, you're investing in the future productivity and welfare of your herd.

Housing is just one component of successful calf rearing, but it's a foundation that influences every other aspect of calf management. Comfortable, healthy calves are easier to manage, more resilient to challenges, and more likely to develop into productive, long-lived dairy cows.

When planning or modifying calf housing systems, consider these key principles:

Comfort over convenience. While ease of management is important, calf comfort should be the primary consideration. Comfortable calves grow faster, stay healthier, and require less intervention. Regularly assess your facilities from the calf's viewpoint. What seems adequate from human height may be very different at calf level.

Design for natural behaviours. Ensure housing allows calves to express normal behaviours including lying, playing, grooming, and exploring. Restrictive environments compromise welfare and development.

Flexibility. Calf needs change as they grow, and seasonal conditions vary. Design systems that can be adjusted for different calf sizes, group sizes, and weather conditions.

Reduce competition. Design feed, water, and resting areas to minimise competition between calves. Shy or smaller calves should still be able to access all resources comfortably.

Shed design

It is important to ensure that there is enough ventilation so that there is a regular circulation of clean air through the sheds. This circulation reduces the risk of respiratory diseases.

Although ventilation is key, it’s important that calves are not exposed to draughts. Get down on the calf level – try at different times of the day and under different weather conditions. Ensure that calves remain warm and dry – if you can feel draughts at their level, this will reduce growth rates as more energy is used to keep warm and less is available for growth.

Within the pen, ensure that calves have enough space. General recommendations are for around 1.5 - 2.5m2 per calf – the more you can give the better. This space will allow the calves to move around freely, explore, and play, as well as providing enough space for the whole group of calves to avoid any poor weather that may come in through the open side of the shed.

Pen design

New Zealand is one of the only countries that group houses calves. Our calves’ benefit from this as it gives them opportunities to play, bond, and learn from their peers.

Sufficient space allows calves to move freely, explore their environment, engage in play behaviours, and avoid aggressive pen mates during feeding or resting.

Adequate space reduces competition for resources like feed, water, and comfortable lying areas. When calves feel crowded, stress levels increase, which can suppress immune function and reduce growth rates.

Sick pens

Complete pen emptying allows for thorough cleaning and disinfection, breaking the cycle of pathogen buildup that occurs when new calves are continuously introduced to contaminated environments.

Limit unnecessary movements between pens to reduce stress and prevent the spread of pathogens. Each time calves are moved, they experience stress and are exposed to new disease challenges.

Maintain a separate isolation area for calves requiring special attention. Early separation of sick calves reduces disease transmission risk, but staff must clean and disinfect themselves and equipment after handling sick animals before returning to healthy calves.

Ensure that staff clean and disinfect themselves and their equipment after handling sick calves, or if possible, provide a separate set of personal protective equipment (PPE) for the sick pen.

Bedding

The most important thing to consider is whether the bedding keeps the calves warm and dry, and if it drains freely.

Calves should be reared on a soft bedding that is comfortable, dry, and clean. Research shows calves housed on stones are colder, spend less time lying down, and engage in less play behaviour compared to those on softer bedding materials. These impacts on comfort and natural behaviour translate directly into reduced growth rates and compromised welfare.

Stone conducts heat away from calves' bodies, forcing them to use more energy to maintain body temperature. This energy could otherwise be directed toward growth and immune function. Uncomfortable surfaces discourage calves from lying down and resting adequately. Rest is crucial for growth hormone release and overall development.

Play is an important indicator of calf welfare and contributes to normal behavioural and physical development. Hard surfaces discourage the jumping, running, and social play that healthy calves naturally engage in.

While stone floors are not recommended, if structural constraints mean you must use them, provide a layer of straw over the back half of the pen to create some comfortable lying space. This compromise allows calves access to a softer surface for resting while maintaining some drainage benefits in high-traffic areas. However, this should be viewed as a temporary solution while planning for better bedding systems that prioritise calf comfort throughout the entire pen area.

Avoid using bedding if it is also offered as a feed source. For example, if you feed roughage of straw or hay, also using this as a bedding may mean that the calves are more inclined to nibble at the bedding, which increases risk of disease.

Water and feed

Clean water should be available to all calves. Even young calves will often have a drink. Without access to water, meal intake decreases and rumen development and weight gain slow down. Clean water troughs regularly.

After calves' drink, they like to eat. Multiple calves should be able to eat at once. Position your feed so that it is easily visible and accessible to all calves at the same time.

Enrichment

Enrichment items should serve a specific behavioural purpose rather than simply providing novelty. The goal is to allow calves to express natural behaviours that contribute to their physical and psychological development. Toys can provide opportunities for play and decrease the likelihood of nibbling on other calves or sucking navels. We have seen some great kiwi ingenuity over the past few years of farmers providing novelty items for their calves including:

• Brushes allow calves to engage in natural grooming behaviours and provide tactile stimulation that they would normally receive from their mothers or herd mates. Mount brushes securely at appropriate heights for calves to use comfortably.
• Horse hay balls or treat dispensing balls encourage natural foraging behaviours and oral manipulation, keeping calves occupied in positive ways while providing mental stimulation.
• Hanging objects for licking and manipulation satisfy calves' natural urge to explore with their mouths and can reduce undesirable behaviours like navel sucking or excessive licking of pen fixtures.

Shelter

Housing for calves is more than just calf pens, and it is important to think about once calves are out in the paddock. As we predominantly calve during spring, outdoor conditions are not always optimal when we get calves outside.

Optimal calf temperature sits between 15-25°C, so the likelihood of dropping below these temperatures over spring is quite high. Once calves are in cold or wet weather, the level of energy required for maintenance and warmth increases, reducing the amount of energy available for growth. Providing shelter for the calves will help minimise the amount of time that the calves are exposed to cold or wet conditions, making it more comfortable for them and helping to increase their ability to grow.

Although outdoor shelters are ideal and provide a high level of comfort, there are some simple, yet effective things that you can do to help reduce exposure of your calves. These include using paddocks with trees or hedges or running some tin/canvas along a fence line to prevent a prevailing wind.