Dairy goat production involves welfare challenges beyond kid separation, including tethering practices, foot care, and housing standards that affect the welfare of adult does across their productive lives.
Dairy goat welfare extends throughout the animal's productive life and encompasses a wide range of issues beyond the highly visible kid separation debate. The prevalence of tethering as a management system in smallholder goat production globally means millions of goats are living with severely restricted movement as their permanent condition. Foot health management, social housing quality, and environmental enrichment are all dimensions of ongoing goat welfare that receive insufficient attention. Improving goat welfare requires addressing the full life-stage welfare picture rather than focusing exclusively on the most emotionally salient issues.