Providing long hay in a novel pipe feeder or a bucket reduces some, but not all abnormal oral behaviors in milk-fed dairy calves

Many milk-fed dairy calves are not provided forage. In these settings, calves often perform abnormal repetitive behaviors (ARBs), including tongue rolling and nonnutritive oral manipulation (NNOM), that, based on their form, seem similar to movements used when processing feed. Feeding hay, typically presented as a short chop (≤5 cm) in a bucket, reduces ARBs. Our objective was to evaluate whether altering the presentation method of long hay (approx. 19 cm), by providing it in a bucket or a novel polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe feeder, could reduce ARBs. Holstein heifer calves were housed individually on sand and fed ad-libitum starter grain and limited milk replacer (5.7-8.4 L/d step-up) via a bottle (Control, n=9) or given access to mountaingrass hay in a bucket (Bucket, n=9) or in a PVC pipe feeder (Pipe, n=9). The 56 x 10.2 cm (length x diameter) PVC pipe feeder had four 6.4 cm-wide openings that required the calf to insert her tongue into the pipe and curl her tongue to extract hay. T..., Please see the associated manuscript for details., Supplemental material: The supplemental materials in this section are referenced in the corresponding paper, and provide additional information and context for the experiment’s design and results. Raw data, RMarkdown files, and tables are presented as proportions, which is how the data were analyzed. RMarkdown files that produce figures convert these proportions to percentages, and the corresponding manuscript similarly converts all proportions to percentages to improve readability. Supplemental tables and figures: Supplemental Tables and Figures.pdf Supplemental Table S1. Feed and ADG model outputs: Model outputs for feed (grain, hay, and TMR) intake and water intake in the preweaning and weaning periods, and average daily gain (ADG) during the preweaning period. Supplemental Table S2. Behavior model outputs: Back-transformed model-predicted means (using type = “response” in emmeans in R), SE, and 95% CI for all oral behaviors scored, along with model outputs. Supplemental Figure S...多数哺乳犊牛未被提供粗饲料。在此类饲养环境中，犊牛常表现出异常重复行为（abnormal repetitive behaviors, ARBs），包括卷舌行为与非营养性口腔操作（nonnutritive oral manipulation, NNOM）；从行为形式来看，这类动作与犊牛处理饲料时的动作相似。以桶饲喂切碎长度≤5 cm的干草，可降低犊牛的异常重复行为发生率。本研究旨在评估：对长度约19 cm的长干草，改变其饲喂方式——分别采用桶具或新型聚氯乙烯（polyvinyl chloride, PVC）管饲喂器投喂——是否可降低犊牛的异常重复行为。 荷斯坦母犊牛被单栏饲养于砂床上，自由采食开食颗粒料，并通过奶瓶饲喂限量阶梯式代乳粉（每日投喂量以5.7~8.4 L阶梯式递增）。试验分为三组：对照组（Control，n=9）仅饲喂代乳粉与开食料；桶饲组（Bucket，n=9）额外以桶饲喂山地禾草干草；管饲组（Pipe，n=9）额外以PVC管饲喂器投喂山地禾草干草。该PVC管饲喂器尺寸为56 cm（长）×10.2 cm（直径），带有4个宽度为6.4 cm的取食口；犊牛需将舌头伸入管内并卷曲舌头，方可取出干草。试验详情请参见相关研究论文。 补充材料： 本节补充材料已在对应论文中引用，可为试验设计与结果提供额外信息与背景。原始数据、RMarkdown脚本与表格均以比例形式呈现，这也是本研究数据分析所采用的形式。生成图表的RMarkdown脚本会将比例转换为百分比，对应论文中也将所有比例转换为百分比以提升可读性。 补充图表： Supplemental Tables and Figures.pdf 补充表S1 饲料与平均日增重模型输出结果：断奶前与断奶阶段的饲料（谷物、干草与全混合日粮（total mixed ration, TMR））采食量、饮水量，以及断奶前阶段平均日增重（average daily gain, ADG）的模型输出结果。 补充表S2 行为学模型输出结果：所有口腔行为评分的反变换模型预测均值（采用R语言emmeans包的type = "response"参数计算）、标准误（standard error, SE）与95%置信区间（95% confidence interval, 95% CI），以及模型输出结果。 补充图S...