Page 306 - The Welfare of Cattle

heaLth, dIsease, and anIMaL WeLfare 283

Webster (2001) has described the relationship between the animal care giver and the animal
with respect to animal welfare in terms of five freedoms.

1. Freedom from hunger and thirst.
2. Freedom from discomfort.
3. Freedom from pain, injury, and discomfort.
4. Freedom of expression of normal behavior by providing sufficient space, proper facilities with ani-
mals of its own kind.
5. Freedom from fear and distress by providing appropriate treatment and conditions to avoid anxiety.

The first freedom is freedom from hunger and thirst. The animal should have ready access to fresh
water and a diet to maintain full health and vigor. This a fairly straight forward obligation of good
husbandry/stockman ship by the owner/care giver of the dairy animals. Anything less is animal
abuse. For the dairy owner, it is in their best interest to meet these needs as failure to do so will
compromise productivity and violate consumer trust.
The second freedom is freedom from discomfort. By providing an appropriate environment
including shelter and a comfortable resting area. The second freedom is closely associated with the
third freedom—freedom from pain, injury or disease—and the fourth freedom—expression of nor-
mal behavior by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind.
Poorly designed and managed facilities can be responsible for discomfort in a number of ways. In
overcrowed facilities, submissive cows may not have access to bunk space and to free stalls. Cows
that spend more of their time standing without access to free stalls results in an increased incidence
of lameness. Overcrowding of facilities leads to stress and disease. Nordlund (2009) has shown that
transition cows that don’t have adequate bunk space have a higher incidence of disease associated
with transition from dry cows to lactation including displaced abomasum, ketosis, and metritis.
The third freedom is the freedom from pain, injury, or disease. By prevention of pain during
routine surgical procedures such as dehorning and minimizing discomfort by rapid diagnosis and
treatment of disease.
Dehorning and tail-docking are two procedures that should be seriously evaluated in relation to
the social contract. Most veterinarians, consumers, and producers feel that tail-docking should be
discontinued. Consumers feel that tail-docking is mutilation of the animal and prevents the animal
from displaying their natural means of fly control. The primary reasons given for tail-docking are
improved cow cleanliness and better udder health. There seems to be little scientific justification for
the tail-docking for either of these reasons. According to an observation from an NHMS study, cows
had better hygiene scores in herds that did not dock tails (Lombard, 2010). If cleanliness or worker
safety is an issue, the switch can be clipped at times when the animal is routinely handled such as
post-freshening. In addition, the practice of tail-docking dairy cattle is banned or discouraged in
most industrialized countries except the US (Sutherland and Tucker, 2011). Dehorning is a common
practice to prevent the potential of injury to herd mates and humans. There are several means of
dehorning animals. The most important considerations are that dehorning should be done early in
life, it should include some means of pain mitigation, and that person doing the dehorning be trained
to do the procedure safely and effectively.
Although the polled trait in Holstein cattle is transmitted as autosomal dominant trait, research-
ers have demonstrated that selection for the trait would negatively affect selection for Net Merit
dollars (Spurlock et al., 2014).
Many of the injuries to adult cattle are preventable. It is a good practice to develop a system
of categorizing injuries “splits,” the cow traffic areas should evaluated for the slipperiness of the
surface. In addition, the cow handling should be evaluated to determine how the cows are moved;
are the cows being moved in a quiet manner without yelling and hitting cows and allowed to move
at a peaceful pace.