Infectious diseases, particularly bovine respiratory disease (BRD) and neonatal calf diarrhea (NCD), are prevalent in calves. Efficient health-monitoring tools to identify such diseases on time are lacking. Common practice (i.e., health checks) often identifies sick...
Describing certain animal behaviours as 'depression-like' or 'depressive' has become common across several fields of research. These typically involve unusually low activity or unresponsiveness and/or reduced interest in pleasure (anhedonia). While the term 'depression-like' carefully...
Digital dermatitis (DD) is an infectious disease affecting the bovine digital skin which can cause lameness and significantly affect animal welfare and economics. Digital dermatitis has emerged in feedlots and early identification of DD lesions...
There is an interest in alternative rearing systems that allow for prolonged cow-calf contact (CCC). Yet, a better understanding of cows’ affiliative behaviour in those systems is needed. We evaluated the effect of type of...
Gentle human-animal interactions can induce positive emotions in cattle and enhance their welfare. We investigated whether a change in the animals’ perceived control over the situation influences their perception of the interactions. We compared the...
The review aimed to collect information about the wearable wireless sensor system (WWSS) for cattle and to conduct a systematic literature review on the accuracy of predicting the physiological parameters of these systems. The WWSS...
We used an operant conditioning paradigm to test the motivation of non-pregnant dairy heifers to access shade during the summer and autumn months (January to June) in southern Brazil. Dairy heifers (n = 18) were...
Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the...
The concept of animal welfare (AW) has many meanings. Traditionally, AW has been considered as freedom from disease and suffering. Nowadays, growing attention goes to the concept of “positive animal welfare” (PAW), which can be...
One important type of animal welfare concern is “natural living” (i.e., that animals are able to express natural behaviours that are important to them, and to engage with aspects of the natural world that they...