Clustering of ad libitum milk-fed dairy calves according to milk feeding behaviour and its impact on feed intake, growth performance and metabolic and endocrine traits in blood

Dairy calves are able to digest and metabolize large amounts of milk or milk replacer when milk is freely available (1). However, ad libitum milk-or milk replacer-fed calves largely variate in their feeding behaviour and individual feed intake during the preweaning period (2).The aim of the present study was to detect possible similarities between milk feeding behaviour in specific subgroups of calves with free access to milk replacer (MR) and to explore how it can affect feed intake, growth performance, and blood metabolites and hormones. The study intends to classifying ad libitum-fed calves according to their individual voluntary MR intake using a clustering approach.