With the exception of a detailed Directive for calves, the welfare of dairy cattle is not regulated by species-specific legislation in the European Union. Their basic protection falls under the provisions of Directive 98/58/EC, also...
The objective of this study was to describe the effect of penetrating or non-penetrating captive bolt using an occipital approach in 4–5 month old, Holstein steers weighing between 100–200 kg. Twelve calves were divided into...
Positive stockperson attitudes to his or her animals is associated with a positive behavioural response in the animals and in other indicators assumed to reflect a high level of welfare as well as increased productivity...
Background: Lameness is a major health, welfare and production-limiting condition for the livestock industries. The current ‘gold-standard’ method of assessing lameness by visual locomotion scoring is subjective and time consuming, whereas recent technological advancements have...
Detection of slightly lame cows and non-lame cows with limb pathologies and those with early limb pathologies is most challenging. Therefore, the availability of a sensitive, objective tool to complement the clinical limb examination is...
Dystocia is considered painful and stressful for both the dam and the calf, although systematic evidence of this is limited. Few studies have investigated biochemical markers of stress and pain postpartum and whether any adverse...
Cattle mother-offspring contact calls encode individual-identity information; however, it is unknown whether cattle are able to maintain individuality when vocalising to familiar conspecifics over other positively and negatively valenced farming contexts. Accordingly, we recorded 333...
Individual housing of dairy calves is common farm practice, but has negative effects on calf welfare. A compromise between practice and welfare may be housing calves in pairs. We compared learning performances and affective states...
Drying-off is one important management step in commercial dairy farms and consists of ceasing milk production artificially at a specific point in time, generally 2 months before the next calving. Drying-off typically comprises dietary changes...
The human-animal relationship can have a major impact on cow welfare and stockpersons´ work safety and quality. This cross-sectional study investigated possible effects of stockperson and farm related factors on cows´ behaviour towards humans in...