Assessing pain in end of career cows
This video shows good and best practice for pain scoring in cows.
Enriching the environment
Providing a stimulating environment is essential for cognitive and behavioural health and enhances resilience. In this podcast we hear from Kirsten Wosnitza, a dairy farmer in Germany and Dr Isabelle Veissier, from Care4Dairy. The transcript below has been edited for…
Euthanasia decision-tree
Best practice farms prioritise the health and welfare of cows at the end of their productive life by keeping them safe, comfortable, and medicated to alleviate pain. Euthanasia is practiced humanely when a cow suffers severely and cannot be cured.
The importance of access to outdoor spaces for cows
This video shows good and best practice for providing cows with access to outdoor spaces.
Hints and tips on managing calving
Best practice farms achieve healthy, natural calving by selecting sires for calving ease, careful management of pregnant animals, monitoring at calving to enable timely and effective intervention when needed and permitting dam-neonate interactions.
Hints & tips on managing cow-calf contact systems
There are many benefits of cow-calf contact systems such as better immunity and growth and more social adaptability of the animals. This podcast hears from experts Professor Sigrid Agenäs from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Professor Siobhan Mullan…
Preparation of heifers for calving
This video shows good and best practices for preparing heifers for calving.
Optimising the environment for heifers
Best practice farms optimise the quality & performance of heifers by providing a clean, safe enriched environment to support animal health & welfare.
Building belief that good welfare practices enable cows to be more productive
Key success factors to enhancing heifer productivity include regularly recording body condition or liveweight, health planning, reducing stress and encouraging positive behaviours. In this podcast we hear from Dr Joe Patton, Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer Department, at Teagasc in…
