Moving beyond minimum welfare standards to actively measuring positive welfare states in dairy cows — including play, social bonding, curiosity, and comfort behaviours — offers a more ambitious framework for dairy welfare improvement.
Positive welfare science represents an important evolution beyond minimum standard compliance toward genuinely good lives for dairy cows. The distinction matters: a cow can be free from obvious disease and still live a life of chronic boredom, social frustration, and minimal positive experience. Positive welfare indicators — play, grooming, curiosity, comfort lying — provide a more ambitious target that asks not just what harms are absent but what good experiences are present. For dairy farming, this framework points toward systems that offer outdoor access, social choice, comfortable resting surfaces, and opportunities for natural behaviour expression. Consumer and retailer demands that include positive welfare criteria in certification are beginning to move markets in this direction.