A mixed-methods survey of dairy veterinarians' attitudes toward and experiences with social and individual housing of the preweaning dairy calf in the United States and Canada

Although most dairy calves are housed individually during the preweaning period in the United States and Canada, there is increased interest in various ways to socially house calves. We sought to describe practicing veterinarians' attitudes and experiences with dairy calf social housing using a mixed-methods survey. The survey was hosted on the online Qualtrics platform from June through October 2023 and taken by practicing dairy veterinarians (n = 157) based in the United States and Canada. The survey addressed (1) demographics; (2) attitudes toward dairy calf housing; (3) perceptions toward societal expectations; (4) experiences with farms using preweaning social housing; and (5) experiences with farms that had tried social housing but had since reverted to individual housing. Demographic and categorical data were summarized descriptively, demographic predictors of categorical outcomes were assessed with ordinal logistic regression, and qualitative responses were processed using content analysis. Most participants were between the ages of 25 and 35 (30.6%) or 36 and 45 (26.5%); approximately half were women (48.4%) and half men (49.0%), with 0.6% identifying as nonbinary, and 1.9% preferring not to say; and more practiced in the United States (73.2%) than in Canada (26.7%). Most (82.8%) participants reported working with farms using some form of social housing for preweaning calves. Of these, respondents worked with all housing types, including pair (64.4%), small group (70.8%), large group (73.1%), nurse cows (16.2%), and cow-calf pairs (10%). Most veterinarians considered the transition to social housing at least somewhat (49.7%), if not extremely, feasible (17.4%). Approximately half of participants (44.6%) indicated they also worked with farms that had tried preweaning social housing but had since transitioned back to individual housing. Participants reported that these farms had most often tried large (56.5%), followed by small groups (34.8%), pairs (24.6%), and cow-calf pairs (2.9%). Overall, participants rated individual, pair, and small groups as the most ideal and acceptable preweaning housing (compared with large groups, cow-calf pairs, and nurse cows). Generally, Canadians and women were more comfortable with housing preweaning calves socially compared with those in the United States or men. Although many noted that "ideal" was often contingent on farms' management and infrastructure, those who favored individual housing often focused on health and disease control (84.5% of participants giving reasons for individual housing). Those preferring pairs or small groups favored providing balance between provision of socialization and learning opportunities (61.4%) and control of disease/promotion of health and growth (63.6%). In contrast, cow-calf pairs were by far viewed as the most publicly acceptable option (71.3%), with individual housing most frequently deemed as least acceptable to the public (81.5%). When looking 20 yr into the future, participants thought that some sort of social housing would be the most common form of preweaning calf housing (63%), although nearly a third (27.9%) thought most calves would still be individually housed. Overall, most veterinarians favored housing systems that were felt to support calf health, with socialization also deemed important by a portion of participants, highlighting the need for continued work to support transitions to housing systems that meet both health and behavioral needs of calves.