Limit feeding TMR exacerbates intersucking in year-old dairy heifers

Limit feeding is a practice that is used to improve feed efficiency and control growth in dairy heifers, but also has negative consequences associated with hunger and restriction of feeding behavior. One such consequence could be intersucking (i.e., the licking or sucking of another animal’s teats or udder). This behavior is reported to varying degrees in heifers, and thus, our first objective was to evaluate whether intersucking increased in response to short-term (48 h) feed restriction. Intersucking interventions, such as nose rings, are often applied to specific animals, and so our second objective was to describe intersucking performance in individual heifers, including those that represent outliers in this population. We studied 42 heifers (9 Jerseys, 33 Holsteins) aged 12.8 ± 1.1 mo (mean ± SD). They were housed in 21 pairs, the experimental unit for our first objective. We used a switchback design with 3 periods of 2 d each where heifers were fed ad libitum total mixed ration in..., The methods are described in the associated research publication. , , # Data from: Limit feeding TMR exacerbates intersucking in year-old dairy heifers

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Data were collected from 42 pair-housed dairy heifers (Jerseys, n=9; Holsteins, n=33) that were approximately 13 mo old to evaluate whether intersucking was affected by solid feed provision. Heifers were fed an ad-libitum total mixed ration (TMR) for 2 d (\"Baseline\"), then restricted to 50% of their previous intake for 2 d (\"Restriction\") before being returned to ad-libitum TMR for 2 d (\"Return\"). Heifers were observed from 08:00-20:00 in each period for time spent intersucking and eating. Intersucking was scored continuously, while eating was scored at 5-min scans. Heifers were tested in 5 total cohorts of 4-5 pairs of heifers per cohort.

## Description of the data and file structure

* *Intersucking and eating data.xlsx*; This file presents data from all 42 heifers (\"ID\" column) and identifies them as Jerseys or Holsteins (\"Breed\" colum...