The interest in letting calves stay with their mothers is growing in both farmers and consumers, according to Sigrid Agenäs, who is a professor in the management of ruminants at the Department of Animal Feeding and Care at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU, in Uppsala. But there is no scientifically based knowledge in the field, since the practice in today's milk production for hundreds of years has been to separate cow and calf during the first day of life of the calf.
- It's a question that often arises, how cow and calf are affected by not being together, says Sigrid Agenäs.
Therefore, she and her colleagues want to find out more about how it affects milk production as well as animal health and well-being, if the calves are allowed to stay with their mothers.
Right now in this experiment you have chosen to separate the calves from the cows at the age of four months, but later in the experiment you will try different ages.
In the clip above you can see how the research goes.