Welfare of dairy cows

Abstract

This Scientific Opinion addresses a European Commission's mandate on the welfare of dairy cows as part of the Farm to Fork strategy. It includes three assessments carried out based on literature reviews and complemented by expert opinion. Assessment 1 describes the most prevalent housing systems for dairy cows in Europe: tie-stalls, cubicle housing, open-bedded systems and systems with access to an outdoor area. Per each system, the scientific opinion describes the distribution in the EU and assesses the main strengths, weaknesses and hazards potentially reducing the welfare of dairy cows. Assessment 2 addresses five welfare consequences as requested in the mandate: locomotory disorders (including lameness), mastitis, restriction of movement and resting problems, inability to perform comfort behaviour and metabolic disorders. Per each welfare consequence, a set of animal-based measures is suggested, a detailed analysis of the prevalence in different housing systems is provided, and subsequently, a comparison of the housing systems is given. Common and specific system-related hazards as well as management-related hazards and respective preventive measures are investigated. Assessment 3 includes an analysis of farm characteristics (e.g. milk yield, herd size) that could be used to classify the level of on-farm welfare. From the available scientific literature, it was not possible to derive relevant associations between available farm data and cow welfare. Therefore, an approach based on expert knowledge elicitation (EKE) was developed. The EKE resulted in the identification of five farm characteristics (more than one cow per cubicle at maximum stocking density, limited space for cows, inappropriate cubicle size, high on-farm mortality and farms with less than 2 months access to pasture). If one or more of these farm characteristics are present, it is recommended to conduct an assessment of cow welfare on the farm in question using animal-based measures for specified welfare consequences.

Keywords: dairy cows; husbandry systems; lameness; mastitis; welfare.

Figure 1

Overview of prevalent housing systems for dairy cows in the EU Member States

Figure 2

Measurement of cows' body dimensions (© CIGR)

Figure 3

Schematic representation of important cubicle design criteria (© 2023 Elsevier inc.)

Figure 4

Sequence of rising up and lying down movements (courtesy of Sonja Wlcek)

Figure 5

Natural lying postures of cow (© KTBL)

Figure 6

Potential degree of movement restrictions depending on the type of indoor lying area in loose housing systems (bottom), level of indoor confinement (middle) and extent of outdoor access (top)

Figure 7

Fixed brush (© Jan Brinkmann)

Figure 8

Electric rotating cow brush (© Christoph Winckler)

Figure 9

Diagrammatic representation of the proposed risk‐based approach to welfare assessment on dairy farms

Figure 10

Diagrammatic summary of the elicited risk‐based scheme to identify and assess European dairy farms at high risk of poor welfare

1. Farm characteristics (left side) are considered to lead to specified welfare consequences (central panel) which would be evaluated at herd level using the assessment criteria (right side). Where no herd‐level assessment is present, it was deemed by the expert group that no suitable animal or herd‐based measures were available/feasible for that specific farm characteristic.

Figure I.1

An outline of the steps in consensus elicitation using a conventional Nominal Group Technique

1. *For this elicitation, Stage 1 (individual idea generation) will be conducted remotely prior to the meeting in Parma.

Figure I.2

Diagrammatic representation of a risk‐based approach to welfare assessment on dairy farms

Figure K.1: (a)–(g). Boxplots to illustrate the distribution across expert group members of elicited quantities for each farm‐based measure. ‘Lower’ represents dairy farms considered to implement best welfare practices, ‘Upper’ represents farms considered to have the poorest welfare and ‘Median’ represents farms considered to have the most widespread or average practices in dairy farming. ‘Thresh’ represents the threshold at which the group expert deemed corrective action should be taken. The distributions of Lower, Upper and Median summarise the values of individual experts (not revealing individual's uncertainty) and comprise the outcome of the consensus discussion between the experts. Lower, Upper and Median were elicited independent of the value of Thresh. The former refers to the dairy farm population in EU, while the latter is about a farm with specified farm characteristic