Table 3.

Effects of housing treatment, with calves housed individually (IH) or in pairs (PH), on dairy calf ¹ social preference ratios ² during a social preference test conducted at 4 weeks of life (29.3 ± 1.9 d of age).

Preference Ratio	Treatment		SE	F1,25	p
	IH	PH
Side	0.48	0.64 *	0.05	4.14	0.05
Attention directed	0.49	0.57	0.05	1.19	0.29
Contact 3	0.26 * (0.14, 0.43)	0.50 (0.32, 0.74)	-	3.60	0.07
Close proximity 4	0.47	0.67 *	0.06	4.40	0.05
Far proximity 4	0.53	0.59	0.06	0.49	0.49
Total proximity and contact 5	0.48	0.64 *	0.06	3.41	0.08

* p < 0.05, denotes that preference ratio differed significantly from 0.5. ¹ Data reported for n = 15 IH calves and n = 14 PH calves, excluding calves that did not approach both stimulus calves (‘less familiar’ and ‘more familiar’ animals in the social preference test), based on a criteria of >6 s in close proximity with each animal during the test. ² Calculated as duration of each behavior directed toward the ‘more familiar’ calf, divided by total duration of that behavior. ³ Contact was square-root transformed to meet assumptions of normality. Back-transformed least squares means and 95% CI are shown. ⁴ Close proximity defined as <1 body length of the stimulus calf, but not physically touching the stimulus calf; far proximity defined as >1, <2 body lengths of the stimulus calf, and any proximity is the summation of both proximity measures (total duration within two body lengths). ⁵ Total proximity and contact defined as the sum of close proximity (<1 body length of the stimulus calf), far proximity (>1, <2 body lengths of the stimulus calf), and direct physical contact with the stimulus calf.