increase font size
New research out of Queens University in Belfast suggests that a lack of access to pasture could be affecting cows' emotional wellbeing.
Dairy cows with no access to outside pasture may have damaged emotional wellbeing.
That's the conclusion that researchers at Queen's University in Belfast in Northern Ireland have come to in a report just published in the prestigious journal Nature.
Over the past year, Dr Gareth Arnott, senior lecturer in animal behaviour and welfare at Queens says their research shows the psychological damage that lockdown can have on human wellbeing, but notes that "livestock lockdown" may also damage emotional wellbeing in dairy cows.
"In humans, negative moods are linked to pessimistic judgements, such as depression and anxiety sufferers tend to expect fewer positive outcomes in life. By contrast, happy emotions and moods are linked to more optimistic judgements.
"This study is the first of its kind to investigate whether dairy cows also have this judgement bias, and whether optimistic judgements can be used as an indicator of psychological wellbeing, which is important for animal welfare," he says.
Arnott says animal welfare scientists and dairy consumer have long been concerned that depriving dairy cattle of pasture access harms their welfare. He says pasture access can promote natural behaviour, improve cows' health, and cows given the choice spend most of their outside.
"However, the effects of pasture access on dairy cows' psychological wellbeing have been poorly understood."
Hawke's Bay dairy farmer Rose Galloway rejects any suggestion that mastitis in cows isn't contagious. A trained nurse, Galloway and her family milk 550 cows near Norsewood and says mastitis is caused by pathogens entering the cow's udder through the teat canal and can pass onto other cows. She explains:
In a move that illustrates the current parlous state of the dairy industry, the country's biggest farmer is pulling out of dairy and moving into sheep milking.
Scientists at Massey University have confirmed what farmers have known for years: cows do not like to walk uphill.
Cows can dance for joy or stretch right out in deep, peaceful sleep because of the comfort of compost-bedding pack barns, says Maury Cox of the Kentucky Dairy Development Council.
Continuously doling out freebies and subsidies to various sections of society, the Punjab government in India has now decided go a step further and provide free-of-charge power to cows.
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
Within the next 10 years, New Zealand agriculture will need to manage its largest-ever intergenerational transfer of wealth, conservatively valued at $150 billion in farming assets.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Selecting the reverse gear quicker than a lovestruck boyfriend who has met the in-laws for the first time, the Coalition Government has confirmed that the proposal to amend Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) charged against farm utes has been canned.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…
