Table 26.

Group size categories considered in the EKE

Group size category	Rationale and comments
Individual pens	This housing system is common in veal farms in calves between 2 and 6 to 8 weeks of age. In this housing system, the effect of commingling (i.e. grouping animals from different sources in the same pen) is largely reduced because animals, although able to see and touch other calves, do not have full contact.
Pens of 2–3 animals	Although not common in veal farms, the estimation of prevalence on this housing system was deemed important because it was considered that this group size could provide the advantages of social housing and prevent the disease problems associated with larger groups.
Pens of 4–7 animals	Very common group size in veal farms. Regrouping is relatively common especially in pens with milk troughs where calf weight variation is higher than in automated milk feeding systems.
Pens of 12–18 animals	Not a very common group size in veal farms. Literature suggests that respiratory disorders in calves kept in groups larger than 10 tend to be higher.
Pens of 30–40 animals	This group size can be found in veal farms in the Netherlands (~ 5% of farms) and France (5–10% of farms). Regrouping is not common in this housing system. No data were found in the literature on respiratory disorder incidence for this group size.