Outdoor Individual Portable Pens Compared with Conventional Housing for Raising Dairy Calves

Thirty-two new-born calves were divided equally and placed in individual outdoor portable pens or in a barn and exercise lot during a test covering 2 years. During the second year, half of the calves in each system of management were given inoculations with rumen fluid. The pen calves were placed on a site which was clean the first year and slightly contaminated by older animals the second year. Despite temperatures as low as 9° F., the calves in the portable pens made significantly greater weight gains both years and had fewer coccidia and worm parasites and less diarrhea than the barn calves. All calves in the barn had respiratory troubles, but only one calf in the pens had this trouble. One barn calf died from pneumonia following an attack by E. zurnii, a pathogenic coccidian. The growth response of calves that were fed rumen fluid did not differ significantly from that of uninoculated calves. When placed together on pasture at the age of 5 or 6 months, the portable pen calves showed no more susceptibility to coccidia and worm parasites than the calves from the barn and continued to maintain their superior weights.