The welfare of dairy cows in pasture-based systems

Pasture-based dairy systems are often perceived as the most "natural" method of production, thus providing cows with the best welfare. Pasture is frequently reported to provide more comfortable walking and lying surfaces and greater exercise resulting in reduced lameness, and allows the expression of natural social behaviours. However, pasture-based dairy production is practiced in only select countries worldwide, including Ireland and New Zealand, where weather conditions allow for nearly year-round grass growth. There has been very little research into the welfare status of cows assigned to pasture-based systems on an almost fulltime basis. The current gold-standard for evaluating the welfare of dairy cattle is the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol; yet it was not designed with pasture-based systems in mind, and thus does not take into consideration their unique challenges. In pasture-based systems, cows must obtain the majority of their dry matter intake (DMI) through grazing, must walk long distances from paddocks to milking parlours, requiring well maintained roadways, and must spend great lengths of time outdoors in all weather conditions. Additionally, due to the seasonal nature of pasture-based dairy systems, producers are primarily focussed on their cows during the grazing season, with the potential for the animal welfare to decline during the housing period when cows are dried off.

Further challenges in the Irish dairy system stem from the elimination of dairy quotas in 2015, leading to a rapid increase in herd sizes over the past 3 years as producers seek to maximize production, potentially at the expense of welfare. To ensure continued high standards of welfare, and maintain lasting consumer confidence in the industry, we must address the lack of knowledge around the welfare status of cows in pasture-based systems. Therefore, the goals of this research are to

1. evaluate known dairy cow welfare measures under different pasture-based feeding strategies and identify those most suitable in a welfare assessment protocol for use on commercial farms,
2. evaluate the current welfare status of Irish dairy cows, using a welfare assessment protocol adapted for pasture-based dairy systems,
3. to compare potential welfare differences within farms during the grazing and housing periods and 4) to identify risk and protective factors for welfare within pasture-based systems.

A two-part experimental study will address the first objective by examining the effect of different quantities of grass, stocking rates and housing strategies common to Irish farms, on measures of dairy cow welfare. The remaining objectives will be addressed by utilizing a welfare assessment protocol (such as the Welfare Quality Protocol) adapted for use in pasture-based systems and applying it on a random selection of Irish dairy farms that reflect current farm practices. The resulting data will be used to compare the welfare within farms during the grazing and housing periods as well as to determine the risk and protective factors for welfare within pasture-based systems.