Table 1 Association of recovery status (recovered or relapsed) with feeding and activity behaviors of dairy calves (n = 19 matched pairs^a) in the 10 days after initial Bovine Respiratory Disease diagnosis and antimicrobial therapy on d 0.

Variable	Recovered	Relapsed	SEM	F-value^e	P-value (recovery status)^c	P-value (recovery status * day)
Milk intake (L/day)	9.05	8.16	0.17	12.47_1,17	0.001	0.41
Drinking speed (L/min)	1.02	0.81	0.05	6.72_1,15	0.02	0.41
Rewarded visits (visits/day)	3.74	3.80	0.10	0.20_1,17	0.66	0.52
Unrewarded visits (visits/day)	2.40 [95% CI 0.21–2.59]	1.53 [95% CI 0.35–1.55]	NA	6.07_1,17	0.02	0.62
Starter intake (g/day)	137.50 [95% CI 11.25–263.74]	51.54 [95% CI 23.74–126.24]	NA	18.48_1,16	0.001	0.63
Lying time (h/day)	17.37	18.14	0.15	11.33_1,17	< 0.001	0.02
Lying bouts (bouts/day)	19.59	17.39	0.48	10.47_1,17	0.001	0.59
Step count (steps/day)	505.43	295.80	21.78	40.85_1,17	< 0.001	0.01
Acceleration activity index^b	2834.49	1751.26	115.47	38.79_1,17	< 0.001	0.04

Feeding behaviors (average drinking speed, milk intake, and number of rewarded visits) were recorded by an automated milk feeder from calves offered 10 L of milk replacer/day, and activity measures (lying time, step count, acceleration activity index^b and lying bouts) were recorded by a pedometer. Results are reported as least squares means^c, or geometric means^d for unrewarded visits and starter intake.
^aAll calves were pair matched to healthy calves by age at diagnosis, birthdate, and gender. Bovine Respiratory Disease was defined as a clinical score of at least 5²⁶ and lobar lung consolidation²⁷.
^bThe acceleration activity index was generated by the commercial software algorithm (IceRobotics, Scotland) based on a calf’s daily average acceleration rate and step count.
^cSignificance are in bold P < 0.05.
^dNon-normally distributed variables were transformed with log₁₀ for significance P < 0.05.
^eSuperscripts refer to numerator and denominator degrees of freedom.

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