A survey of stockperson attitudes and youngstock management practices on Australian dairy farms

Development

The questionnaire used in this study was developed with reference to previous questionnaires produced by Alvåsen et al. (2014), Fukasawa et al. (2017), Kauppinen et al. (2013), Kolstrup (2012), Maller et al. (2005) and Panamá Arias and Spinka (2005). The draft questionnaire was then reviewed by one veterinarian, two animal behaviour scientists and three dairy farmers external to the research team from Australia and New Zealand, and amended where necessary following their consultation.

The questionnaire was anonymous and comprised 38 questions across eight sections (Supplementary Table S1). These blocks followed the following themes: participant and farm demographics, calf management, cow behaviour, heifer behaviour, attitudes towards seven aspects of dairy farming asked according to the TPB (Ajzen 1991), attitudes towards calves and calf-rearing, and a final section on the participant’s experience as a dairy stockperson in their workplace, including their relationships with the cattle under their care.

Distribution

The final version of the questionnaire was delivered via the Qualtrics survey platform (Qualtrics, Provo, UT, USA) and could be accessed via direct link. Where possible, the order of potential answers presented to participants was randomised. The questionnaire was distributed through a link to an online survey between June 2020 and November 2020, and survey distribution was targeted towards dairy stockpeople, particularly those with an interest in heifer management. The online link was available for respondents and industry members to share, and snowball recruitment occurred in this manner. The survey link was also published across social media accounts of industry bodies, including the Animal Welfare Science Centre, DairyTas, the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture and the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, as well as in the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture’s monthly newsletter.

No quotas for demographic requirements were set during the survey. The survey received a convenience sample of 98 responses, after screening for completeness (a minimum of 90% of questions answered), seven of these responses were discarded, leaving 91 responses containing the required data.

Demographics: participants and farms

The survey received responses from 91 participants, including 26 males, 63 females and 2 participants who did not identify as male or female, or preferred not to disclose their gender. Participant age ranged from 18–24 to 65+, with the highest proportion of participants aged 25–34 (33%). Participants had multiple and varied on-farm responsibilities, although 97.8% reported having some responsibility for calf-rearing on their farm. Table 2 compares demographic data from the present study with the most recent industry data (Dairy Australia 2015, 2019, 2022). Raw farm and respondent demographic data are available in Supplementary Table S2.

Participants had worked within the dairy industry from between less than a year (2%) to more than 50 years (1%), with the highest proportion of participants having been involved in the industry for 6–10 years (24%). Time working on the current farm of employment ranged from less than 3 months (2%) to between 41 and 50 years (4%), with the highest proportion of participants having worked on their current farm of employment for 1–5 years (42%). Of all participants, 24% had not completed any industry training.

The greatest percentage of farms (45.1%) operating under Feed System 2, defined as a moderate–high bail system, in which cattle graze pasture and other forages and are fed more than 1 tonne of grain or concentrates in the bail (Dairy Australia 2015). Conversely, cattle had no access to pasture on 4.4% of farms (Table 2b). Most farms milked their cows twice daily (92%), and rotary (37%) or swing-over herringbone (38%) parlours were the most reported. Milking was reported to take from less than an hour (2%) to more than 5 h (1%), although the most predominant milking duration reported was between 2 and 3 h (45.2%). Seventy nine per cent of participants reported that their farm of employment was family-owned and -run.

Participants were asked to indicate how likely they would be to ask the advice of ‘advisors’ from a predetermined list. Of these, the owner or manager of the farm was the most trusted advisor, followed by veterinarians, other dairy farmers or managers or the participant’s closest family. Participants were less likely to consult social media, stockpeople on their farm or their friends for advice about their farm (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Trusted advisors: how often respondents reported turning to various sources for advice and guidance (% respondents).

Australian calf management

Calving patterns reported in the present study were comparable to those reported in current industry data from the 2022 Dairy Australia Animal Husbandry and Genetics Survey (Dairy Australia 2022); 36% of farms followed a seasonal pattern, whereas 41% followed split calving and 22% calved year-round (Table 2). A dedicated employee primarily employed to rear calves was reported by 78% of participants.

Most farms in the present study housed their replacement heifers indoors in groups (54%), while only 10% of farms housed calves individually. Milk feeding practices varied, with sale milk and waste milk being the most used options for calf feeding. Of all participants, 72% reported feeding some form of fresh whole milk to calves, excluding 14% who reported fortification of whole milk with milk replacer on their farm. The use of some form of waste milk to feed calves was reported by 56% of respondents. Neither type of calf housing nor milk feeding management choices was correlated with herd size or feeding system, calving pattern or milking frequency or duration.

Management of Australian replacement heifers

Participants were asked to consider the importance of providing replacement heifers with specialised management at particular life stages, from birth until their first lactation (Supplementary Fig. S1). Participants predominantly ranked all listed stages as somewhat to very important; however, the first week of life and during calving were reported as the most important times for heifers to receive specialised care and focused management. Less than 5% of participants considered that providing specialised management at any particular life stage was unimportant. Of all life stages, lead feed (a practice undertaken during the transition period, which is the period immediately prior to and following calving, during which a cow’s diet is changed to prepare her body for parturition and lactation) and throughout the first lactation were considered as needing the least specialised management (Proudfoot and Huzzey 2022). When identifying areas in which heifers were underperforming on farm, maintaining body condition and feeding successfully and competitively in mixed-age herds attracted the most concern, by 24% and 21% of participants respectively (Supplementary Fig. S2). Health and maintaining pregnancy were the areas of least concern, with only 5% of participants identifying these as areas in which their heifers were underperforming. PCA was able to group these variables into Components 8 and 9.

Twelve per cent of respondents reported greater difficulty performing standard management tasks (such as drenching or vaccinations) with first-lactation heifers than with multiparous cows (Fig. 2). Similarly, 16% of participants reported a greater difficulty moving heifers into and out of the milking shed than moving multiparous cows. A moderate to great difference in difficulty milking fresh heifers compared with fresh multiparous cows in the first week after calving was reported by 35% of respondents when asked to rate these differences. Nevertheless, only 17% of respondents reported moderate to great difficulty training heifers to the milking parlour and routine. PCA was able to group these variables into Component 1.

Fig. 2.

Reported difficulty of managing and handling heifers and multiparous cows on respondent farms (% of respondents).

Most heifers were reported to first mix and be managed with older cows during lead feeding (37.4%), although 27.5% of participants reported that heifers on their farm mixed with older cows prior to this point and 22% of heifers first mixed with older cows when they entered the milking herd after their first calving (Supplementary Table S3). Only 23% of participants reported splitting their herd; of these, 33.3% (n = 7) stated that this was to house heifers separately from older milkers, 14% (n = 3) did so to allow more time to milk their heifers and 62% (n = 13) did so to manage the feed intake and nutritional needs of different groups (Supplementary Table S3).

Current issues in calf management

The most commonly reported motivations for separating cows and calves after calving were colostrum management, reducing calf illness and reducing the spread of Johne’s disease, whereas the loss of profit from sale milk being suckled by calves and the desire to socialise calves with humans were the least commonly reported motivations (Fig. 3). PCA was able to group these variables into Components 2 and 3.

Fig. 3.

Importance of motivators for cow–calf separation to survey respondents (% of respondents).

Reported outcomes for non-replacement calves born on participant farms were varied. Sixty-five per cent of participants reported that non-replacement calves born on their farm may be sold as bobby calves, while 29% reported rearing some calves as dairy beef and 7.5% reported euthanising some non-replacement calves at birth. No distinction was made regarding whether calves euthanised at birth were healthy or not.

In addition to providing categorical responses on non-replacement calf management, respondents were given an option to provide a text response elaborating on their management practices, and were particularly encouraged to do so if they managed non-replacement calves according to more than one practice. Of the 91 respondents, 21 (23%) chose to provide further detail in this text box; text responses were loosely categorised and are presented in Supplementary Table S4. Several respondents identified choosing management practices for individual non-replacement calves dependent on factors such as milk price, health and size of the non-replacement calf and the beef market during the calving season; seven respondents reported calf-based factors and three respondents reported market-based factors. For instance, euthanasia or sale as bobby calves was identified by eight participants as an end point for calves only when the market was poor, when they were unlikely to thrive, or when they were born at the tail end of the calving period and would therefore involve more work and an extended calf-rearing season. Six respondents reported that the bobby truck was one of several pathways for non-replacement calves.

Thirteen respondents sold calves on, eight when calves were young, four when calves were older, and one reporting both of these options. Only one respondent reported rearing calves as beef for their own consumption. Five respondents used beef genetics in their dairy herd to breed non-replacement beef-cross calves. Six participants reported that their farm actively sought private buyers to rehome or rear bull calves where possible, while one participant reported bull calves being reared as stud bulls and another sold non-replacement heifers on as replacements for other farms. These respondents worked with herds ranging from fewer than 150 animals to herds of 501–750 animals.

The only correlation between calf and farm management practices was between the herd’s calving pattern and feeding system, wherein herds that calved more than once per year (i.e. in split or year-round calving systems) were more likely to feed their milking herd higher proportions of concentrate as part of their diet (ρ = 0.431, P < 0.001, Supplementary Table S5).

Stockperson attitudes towards calves and calf welfare

Only 12% of participants agreed with the statement ‘Calves are annoying,’ while 82% disagreed with the statement ‘Rearing calves is a less important job than other tasks on the farm’ (Supplementary Fig. S3). Few participants believed that it is beneficial for calves to have contact with older animals or that a foster-cow rearing system would work on a commercial dairy farm (Fig. 4). Fifty-six per cent of respondents believed that sale as bobby calves is an acceptable alternative to rearing non-replacement calves; conversely, only 17% believed the same of euthanasia at birth. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents did not believe that rearing calves for dairy beef was a viable management choice for their farm. PCA was able to group these variables into Component 4.

Fig. 4.

Respondent attitudes to current issues in calf welfare (% of respondents).

Component variable correlations

Table 3 reports correlations between composite variables and demographic data; few correlations were found and those that were significant tended to be of low strength. Component 4, which pertained to respondent attitudes towards current issues in calf welfare, was correlated with respondent gender, wherein respondents identifying as female were more likely to hold positive attitudes towards calf welfare, including the use of foster cows, and the unacceptability of euthanasia at birth (Table 3, ρ = 0.334, P = 0.013). Component 5, ‘Normative welfare promotion,’ was negatively correlated with whether the farm split their milking herd for management purposes, wherein respondents on those farms that did not split their herds were less likely to believe their trusted advisor valued practices associated with maintaining the welfare of their herd (ρ = −0.315, P = 0.003). Component 9 was negatively correlated with the respondent’s position of employment on the farm, wherein respondents likely to be less invested in the farm, such as casual or seasonal workers, were more likely to view heifers as underperforming (ρ = −0.346, P = 0.001).

Fig. 5 outlines correlations between the composite variables where Spearman’s rank coefficient is >0.1; a full table of correlation coefficients is presented in Supplementary Table S6. Component 7, ‘difficulty of high-welfare practices’ was correlated with Component 1, ‘heifers difficult,’ indicating that believing that managing the herd according to higher-welfare practices was difficult was correlated with believing that heifers were difficult to handle in early lactation (P < 0.001). Furthermore, Component 7 was negatively correlated with Component 3 (‘cow–calf separation for calf health’; P = 0.006), Component 5 (‘normative welfare promotion;’ P < 0.001), and Component 6 (behavioural health promotion; P < 0.001). These correlations indicate that respondents who found managing the herd according to higher-welfare practices was difficult were less likely to believe that their trusted advisors valued these same practices or to believe that these practices were important themselves, and less likely to believe it was important to separate cows and calves for calf-health purposes.

Fig. 5.

Correlations between composite variables (Spearman’s rank coefficient of >0.1; P < 0.05; coefficients >0.3 indicate a statistical correlation).

Component 1, ‘heifers difficult,’ was negatively correlated with Component 9, ‘heifers not underperforming; P < 0.001), wherein respondents who believed heifers were difficult to handle in early lactation were more likely to believe that heifers on their farm were underperforming. Component 5, ‘normative welfare promotion’ was correlated with Component 8 ‘specialised care: all life stages’ (P = 0.003), wherein participants who perceived that their trusted advisors valued management practices associated with herd welfare were more likely to believe that it was important to provide tailored and specialised care to replacement heifers at all life stages.

Demographics

Previous research has indicated that responses from 110 to 200 dairy producers is desirable to suitably capture the management practices of the industry (Abuelo et al. 2019). Random recruitment can, however, be time-consuming and costly. The present study used convenience sampling to survey 91 respondents. The questionnaire was distributed during the first 8 months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020; sampling methodology was constrained by the ability of industry partners to assist while supporting producers through regulatory changes and unprecedented challenges, and the availability of producers to participate in research during this time. Although convenience sampling, particularly through social media, improves questionnaire accessibility and is particularly cost- and time-efficient compared with random recruitment, a potential limitation is a sample less representative of the wider population. As such, the results of the present study should not be considered as representative of the Australian dairy industry as a whole.

To help place the present sample in the context of the wider industry, comparisons were made between demographic data and recently reported industry data (Dairy Australia 2015, 2019, 2022). Reported calving patterns, for instance, reflect the general trends in the Australian dairy industry as reported in national data published by the industry body, Dairy Australia (2022). Victorian dairy regions were slightly under-represented, while proportions of Tasmanian and Western Australian respondents were almost double the relative proportion of farms in these regions (Dairy Australia 2019). The lower proportion of Victorian respondents may reflect a lack of a specific Victorian survey distributor from industry. Tasmanian dairy farms tend towards larger herd sizes than do those in other dairying regions, and this may be reflected in a higher representation from farms with herd sizes greater than the industry average of 279 cows than are proportionally present within the national industry (Dairy Australia 2020a).

From the 91 completed survey responses, 69% of respondents identified as female. A 2020 survey of 400 Australian dairy farmers reported that 25% of respondents were female, indicating that the present study’s sample has a higher proportion of responses from females than are active in the industry at large (Dairy Australia 2020b). Traditionally, the task of calf-rearing has been considered ‘women’s work’ both in Australia and internationally, with calf-rearing and animal-care tasks often undertaken by the ‘farmer’s wife,’ whether in a paid or unpaid capacity (e.g. Alston et al. 2017, 2018; Enticott et al. 2022; Palczynski et al. 2022). Indeed, both male and female participants surveyed by Sachs and colleagues in their 2014 study believed women were more suited to animal-care tasks due to their ‘nurturing’ capabilities (Sachs et al. 2014). The skew towards female participants, 97.8% of whom reported having on-farm calf-rearing responsibilities, is likely to be influenced by the subject matter. This suggests that the sampling bias towards female stockpeople, while not reflective of the Australian dairy industry at large, may suitably represent those in the industry primarily responsible for and interested in calf-rearing and replacement heifer management, and motivated to assist in research. Women have also previously been shown to be more likely to participate in surveys, and obtaining suitable male sample sizes has historically proven difficult (e.g. Green 1996).

Australian calf management

Current issues in dairy calf management

Principal components

Many aspects of replacement-heifer welfare may be dictated by the quality of the human–animal relationships on-farm, from day-to-day interactions to choices made regarding ongoing management. Literature across a range of livestock species has demonstrated significant sequential relationships between farmer attitudes and behaviour, and animal welfare and productivity, including in dairy (e.g. Breuer et al. 2000; Seabrook and Wilkinson 2000; Hemsworth et al. 2002; Munoz et al. 2019, and reviewed by Waiblinger et al. 2006 and Napolitano et al. 2020). Both farmer self-reported behaviour, and farmer attitudes, have been correlated with on-farm outcomes, with farmer attitudes generally being a better predictor (Jansen et al. 2009). While the present study did not measure welfare outcomes on-farm, respondent attitudes towards certain behaviours or management practices may indicate to some extent the experiences of the animals they manage or handle on-farm.

Implications and future research

The results of the present study support the assertions of the HAR model (Hemsworth and Coleman 2011), in which normative, behavioural and control beliefs all play vital roles in determining stockperson behaviour in regard to youngstock on-farm. Firstly, providing education to ‘trusted advisors’ may shift farm cultures and attitudes towards youngstock management and the importance of the early life period. Communication with advisors has been identified by stockpeople across a range of studies as influencing perceptions of farm animal welfare (reviewed by Balzani and Hanlon 2020). Methods of utilising this influence may include providing education and extension to veterinarians and other non-farming industry professionals who actively and regularly engage with stockpeople responsible for youngstock care at all levels, and providing targeted education to farm managers and individuals making herd-level management decisions. This strategy may also mitigate the risk of farm blindness on health, welfare and developmental outcomes of dairy youngstock. Second, addressing the behavioural beliefs of all individuals responsible for youngstock care may support uptake of changes implemented or recommended by trusted advisors. This may be achieved, for instance, through research and extension available both on- and off-farm, and nurturing the leadership potential of individuals who value high-welfare calf and heifer management. Last, perceiving management tasks as difficult means stockpeople are less likely to undertake these tasks (e.g. Munoz et al. 2019). There is value in ensuring all stockpeople involved with youngstock management tasks crucial to ongoing animal welfare feel educated, empowered and supported to provide best care to the animals in their charge.

To determine the extent to which farm blindness affects replacement-heifer welfare and management, future research may choose to compare reported outcomes for heifers with on-farm measures including, for instance, milk yield and composition, body condition scores and heifer survivability. Related to this, of interest for future research may be exploring the extent of providing specialised care to heifers in early lactation and beyond the transition period, and the efficacy of certain management practices specialised towards heifers during this period, which best support their transition into the milking herd, such as training in the parlour prior to the commencement of lactation.

Finally, future research exploring wider industry attitudes and behaviour regarding calf-rearing and management should be conducted using random recruitment so as to obtain a more accurate understanding of whole-of-industry attitudes and behaviours. The present survey may best be described as primarily illustrating the attitudes and practices of the reported participants, with the potential to reflect the attitudes of Australian stockpeople involved with dairy youngstock, rather than those of the industry as a whole. A larger, more industry-representative survey should include those working with youngstock as well as those making whole-farm management decisions, to ensure that data do not solely capture those who prioritise youngstock and their management. Furthermore, accurate data on the type of employees responsible for calf-rearing on Australian farms should collected. Future research may also choose to explore gender differences in both labour roles related to calf-rearing and human–animal relationships with artificially reared calves, which may elucidate further contributing factors to these differences.