The welfare of farm animals is an increasing global concern. An animal is considered to be in a good state of welfare when it is free from hunger, malnutrition, and thirst, free from fear and distress, free from heat stress or physical discomfort, free from pain, injury, and disease, and free to express normal patterns of behaviour. In Europe, a broad array of animal welfare laws is grounded in scientific data provided by institutions like the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The European Commission also has a dedicated animal welfare strategy, which includes initiatives such as the Animal Welfare Platform.
Key Components of Dairy Cattle Welfare
Welfare is commonly described as a tripartite model that entails biological function, mental (affective) state, and natural behaviour (sufficient lying time, social interaction).1
The main welfare issues related to these areas for dairy cows are:
Biological Functioning in Dairy Cattle Welfare
Welfare is commonly described as a tripartite model that entails biological function, mental (affective) state, and natural behaviour (sufficient lying time, social interaction).
Mental State and Emotional Well-Being
The main welfare issues related to these areas for dairy cows are related to biological functioning: undernutrition (or negative energy balance), dehydration, heat stress, injuries, lameness, infectious diseases (including mastitis, metritis, and tuberculosis), metabolic disorders (including ketosis and milk fever), reproductive disorders (including dystocia).
Natural Living and Behavioral Aspects
Related to the concern of affective state: pain, stress, negative emotions, discomfort, hunger, thirst, and positive emotions. Related to the concern of natural living: the disruption of natural behavior (e.g., lying, movement, feeding), disruption of the social environment (e.g., regrouping, large herd size, cow–calf separation, and isolation), and aggression.
Assessing Dairy Cattle Welfare
Assessing the welfare of dairy cows is essential for achieving optimal herd performance. This process requires significant effort to develop science-based welfare indicators that serve as objective, animal-centered assessment tools. These indicators must be both reliable and practical for daily use.
Indicators of Dairy Cattle Welfare
Currently, various systems and measurement protocols are available for the evaluation of the welfare of dairy cattle. One of the most widely used is the European Welfare Quality Protocol®, which outlines a detailed procedure for assessing cattle welfare.
European Welfare Quality® assessment protocol3
Currently, various systems and measurement protocols are available for the evaluation of the welfare of dairy cattle. One of the most widely used is the European Welfare Quality Protocol®, which outlines a detailed procedure for assessing cattle welfare. The protocol includes numerous indicators, though many can be challenging to measure. These indicators are organized into 12 welfare criteria based on four key principles: good feeding, good housing, good health, and appropriate behavior. Each principle includes two to four criteria. The criteria are independent of one another, providing a comprehensive yet concise framework. A summary of the welfare principles, criteria, and indicators is presented in the table below.4
| Welfare principles | Welfare criteria | Indicators |
|---|---|---|
| Good feeding | 1. Absence of prolonged hunger | Very lean cows (%)1 |
| 2. Absence of prolonged thirst | Number of animals per drinker and/or centimeters of trough, functioning, water flow, and cleanliness of drinkers | |
| Good housing | 3. Comfort around resting:
|
Comfort behaviour, Cleanliness, Mean time needed to lie down, Cows lying partly or completely outside the lying area (%), Cows with dirty lower hind legs, hindquarters, and udder (%) |
| 4. Thermal comfort | As yet, no indicator is developed | |
| 5. Ease of movement | Presence of tethering, number of days per year and hours per day with access to pasture and outdoor loafing area | |
| Good health | 6. Absence of injuries:
|
Lameness, Integument alterations, Moderately and severely lame cows (%), Cows with hairless patches (%), Cows with lesions and swellings (%) |
| 7. Absence of disease | Mean number of coughs per cow per hour, On-farm mortality (%), Downer cows (%), Cows with nasal discharge, ocular discharge, hampered respiration, diarrhea, vulvar discharge, dystocia (%), SCC >400,000 cells/mL | |
| 8. Absence of pain induced by management procedures | Disbudding, dehorning, and tail-docking, and methods and use of anaesthetics and analgesics during procedure | |
| Appropriate behaviour | 9. Expression of social behaviours | Mean number of head butts and displacements per cow per hour |
| 10. Expression of other behaviours | Number of days/year and hours/day with access to pasture | |
| 11. Good human-animal relationship | Cows that can be approached 0 to 10 cm, >10 to 50 cm, >50 to 100 cm, and >100 cm (%)3 | |
| 12. Positive emotional state | Scores of 20 terms of the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment4 |
Footnotes:
- 1The category “very lean” corresponds with a BCS <2 in typical dairy breeds and a BCS <2.5 in typical meat or dual-purpose breeds on a 1 (very lean) to 5 (very fat) point BCS scale.
- 2The categories “moderately lame” and “severely lame” correspond to score 3 and scores 4 and 5, respectively, on the 1 (“normal gait”) to 5 (“does not support on one limb or strong reluctance to put weight on a limb in two or more limbs”) point scale of the lameness scoring system described in Winckler and Willen (2001).
- 3Avoidance distance is measured by approaching dairy cows from a distance of 2.5 m at the feed bunk and measuring the distance between hand and muzzle at the moment when the animal withdraws (Welfare Quality, 2009).
- 4Positive emotional state is measured by quantitative valuation of 20 terms of the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment: active, relaxed, fearful, agitated, calm, content, indifferent, frustrated, friendly, bored, playful, positively occupied, lively, inquisitive, irritable, uneasy, sociable, apathetic, happy, and distressed.
Future challenges
Assessing cow welfare using animal-based indicators relies on visual evaluations, which can be time-consuming and costly. This process often requires extended data collection periods, multiple farm visits, and repeated checks by assessors to ensure consistency over time, all of which add to the expense. However, the use of technological tools for accurate, real-time welfare assessments is becoming increasingly common on commercial farms.5
Precision livestock farming (PLF) solutions are now a reality in the dairy industry, enhancing productivity, economic sustainability, and animal welfare. These technologies allow continuous monitoring of health and welfare, particularly for key indicators such as lameness, mastitis, and body condition in dairy cows, providing the accuracy needed for effective welfare management.6
Bibliography
- 1Fraser D. Assessing animal welfare: different philosophies, different scientific approaches. Zoo Biol. 2009 Nov;28(6):507-18.
- 2Leliveld, L.M.C.; Provolo, G. A Review of Welfare Indicators of Indoor-Housed Dairy Cow as a Basis for Integrated Automatic Welfare Assessment Systems. Animals 2020, 10, 1430.
- 3https://www.welfarequalitynetwork.net/media/1088/cattle_protocol_without_veal_calves.pdf
- 4de Vries M, Bokkers EA, Dijkstra T, van Schaik G, de Boer IJ. Invited review: associations between variables of routine herd data and dairy cattle welfare indicators. J Dairy Sci. 2011 Jul;94(7):3213-28.
- 5Vasseur E. Animal behavior and well-being symposium: Optimizing outcome measures of welfare in dairy cattle assessment. J Anim Sci. 2017 Mar;95(3):1365-1371.
- 6Silva, S.R.; Araujo, J.P.; Guedes, C.; Silva, F.; Almeida, M.; Cerqueira, J.L. Precision Technologies to Address Dairy Cattle Welfare: Focus on Lameness, Mastitis and Body Condition. Animals 2021, 11, 2253.