Results of an online questionnaire to survey calf management practices on dairy cattle breeding farms in Austria and to estimate differences in disease incidences depending on farm structure and management practices

Table 6 Results of the multivariable logistic regression models with farmer reported incidence of calf diarrhoea and calf respiratory tract diseases, respectively, as outcome variable (≤10 % or >10 %)

Variable	Category	Diarrhoea		OR	95 % CI	Wald X ²	P-value
Variable	Category	≤10 %	>10 %	OR	95 % CI	Wald X ²	P-value
Herd size (n cows)	≤20	362	193	1
Herd size (n cows)	>20	280	306	1.94	1.52–2.47	28.82	<0.001
Feeding waste milk	No, not at all	112	57	1
	Yes, to all calves	179	165	1.71	1.15–2.54	7.02	0.008
	Only to males	187	179	1.76	1.19–2.61	8.00	0.005
	Only in exceptional cases	169	109	1.30	0.86–1.97	1.57	0.210

Variable		Respiratory tract diseases		OR	95 % CI	Wald X ²	P-value
Variable		≤10 %	>10 %	OR	95 % CI	Wald X ²	P-value
Herd size (n cows)	≤20	329	36	1
Herd size (n cows)	>20	362	77	1.73	1.12–2.65	7.93	0.005
Farm type	Conventional	524	103	1
Farm type	Organic	180	13	0.40	0.21–0.75	6.33	0.014
Calves housed p.n	Individually	630	95	1
Calves housed p.n	Individually and/or in groups	73	20	1.97	1.14–3.42	5.81	0.016

Hosmer–Lemeshow for the model diarrhoea and respiratory tract disease, respectively are P = 0.99 and 0.92
OR odds ratio, CI 95 % confidence interval, p.n. post natum

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