Behavioral reactions of young cattle of Kalmyk breed age up to 3 months in winter-spring period

The article presents the results of a study of the life rate of calves of the Kalmyk breed. We conducted studies of ethological reactions: motor activity, rest (inhibitory reaction), food and excretory reactions. At LLC "Berte", the business yield of calves is 87.6% per year. For the experiment, 10 calves of Kalmyk breed were selected; the calves were born on the farm by the method of purebred breeding along lines in the Far North. During the experiment, the attention was paid to housing conditions and diet, and physical and chemical composition of hay, feed and water were studied in the city veterinary research laboratory. According to the results of the examination, the quality of water and feed meets sanitary and hygienic requirements. Ethological indicators of the winter period revealed that calves spend more time lying down, inhibitory reactions dominate - 64%, 13% of the time is spent on motor activity, 21.8% - on food and 1.2% - on excretory per day. In winter, calves behave calmly; more time is spent by the mother or near feeders. During the timing of the daily behavior of the calves in the spring period, some features of their behavior were revealed. In the morning calves spent time lying down, suckled; in the daytime they moved actively and made comfortable motions, ran, therefore, they began to consume more feed and water, the time of brake reactions was reduced and they sucked more and came to mothers 7-9 times a day. The calves spent 24.4% of time on active movements, 47% was spent on rest, and food and excretory reactions accounted for a total of 28.6 of the time per day.