Pain and pessimism affect calves' play behaviours post-disbudding.

ABSTRACT: Calves are expected to play less when in pain, and more pessimistic individuals may be more affected by painful events, such as hot-iron disbudding (i.e., horn-bud removal). We explored 1) the impact of disbudding on different play behaviours, predicting that those involving the head (e.g., play-fighting) may be more sensitive to disbudding due to the injury location, and 2) the effect of 'pessimism' (assessed using the judgement bias test) on changes in play post-disbudding. Holstein female calves (n = 19) were housed in groups of 10, individually tested for judgement bias at 25 days old, and disbudded following the farm's standards (including sedation and local anaesthesia) at 45 days old. Individual and parallel locomotor play and play-fighting were recorded for 4 h/day (from 1800 to 22

SUBMITTER: St John Wallis A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12313738 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature