The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published new guidance on the welfare of dairy and veal calves.

In a new set of recommendations, published today, the EFSA's opinion calls for calves to be kept in small groups (two to seven calves) during the first week of life, and in stable groups thereafter.

As well as that, the authority recommends increasing space allowance to about 20m²/calf to allow unrestricted play behaviour (which is the preferable allowance) or allow 3m²/calf to allow resting in a comfortable lying position (which would be regarded as a minimum requirement).

It is also recommended that calves should be kept with their dam for a minimum of one day post-partum.

The other key recommendations coming out of the EFSA opinion include:

Ensuring good colostrum management and sufficient amounts of milk are fed to dairy calves (20% of body weight in milk over the first weeks);
Providing a deformable lying surface and water in an open surface;
Providing long-cut roughage from two weeks onwards;
Feeding, on average, 1kg of fibre per day, preferably using long-cut hay.
Collecting different animal-based measures (ABMs) in slaughterhouses, such as body condition, carcass condemnations, abnormal lesions, lung lesions, carcass colour, and bursa swelling, in order to monitor on-farm welfare (it is recommended to complement these ABMs with behavioural ABMs collected on the farm).

The EFSA said that its scientific opinion provides an up-to-date view on calf welfare in the EU and that its advice is relevant for policy makers, risk managers and other interested parties in the area of animal welfare.

The European Commission asked the EFSA to provide the latest scientific evidence on the welfare of farmed calves. The EFSA's Animal Health and Welfare (AHAW) Panel carried out the work.

The assessment and recommendation will provide scientific advice to support the decision-making by legislators as part of the ongoing revision of the EU's animal welfare legislation.

The work that the commission asked the EFSA to carry out including the following tasks:

Describing and assessing the most common husbandry systems for rearing calves (dairy and veal calves) and to identify the welfare issues in each;
Recommending measures to prevent or reduce welfare consequences;
Focussing on three situations (specific scenarios), namely male dairy calves reared for white veal; risks associated with limited cow-calf contact; and AMBs to monitor on-farm welfare in slaughterhouses.

The panel considered eight metrics for measuring calf welfare, including fear, pain, discomfort, fatigue, stress, distress, frustration and boredom.