Moving beyond disease absence to measuring positive welfare states in dairy cattle represents a significant advance in welfare science.
Dairy cattle welfare assessment has historically focused on preventing negative outcomes: lameness, mastitis, mortality. The positive welfare frontier asks: not just are cows free from suffering, but are they experiencing positive states — comfort, social engagement, curiosity? Farms where cows play, groom each other, and explore their environments are demonstrably different from those where cows merely survive. Measuring and rewarding positive welfare indicators — not just penalising poor welfare — creates incentives for farm systems to go beyond compliance toward genuine animal flourishing.