Animal welfare assessment has historically focused on what is wrong — disease, injury, fear. Positive welfare science asks what good welfare looks like and how to promote it actively in dairy herds.
Welfare science has increasingly recognised that the absence of suffering is not the same as the presence of good welfare. A cow that is not lame, not hungry, and not fearful may still be experiencing a life of monotony and frustration in a barren cubicle system. Positive welfare science seeks to identify and promote states of genuine contentment, engagement, and positive affect. For dairy cows, this includes play behaviour in adult animals — an indicator that welfare is sufficiently good for the animal to engage in non-essential activity — social grooming, which reinforces bonds and reduces stress, and voluntary engagement with environmental enrichment. Farms that actively monitor and promote positive welfare indicators, not just manage negative ones, achieve better overall herd health and represent a more aspirational model for dairy welfare.