Most dairy cows are culled before age five despite potential lifespans of 20 years, with early culling driven by production economics undermining lifetime welfare.
Dairy cow longevity welfare reflects a structural feature of high-production dairy farming where the metabolic demands of maximum milk yield impose physiological costs that reduce productive life. The cow that produces most in her first lactation is often the cow most likely to be culled early due to the health consequences of that peak production. Selecting for slightly lower but sustained production across more lactations produces better welfare outcomes per cow over a longer productive life. The welfare of short-lived cows is compromised both by the conditions that caused early culling, typically lameness, disease, or reproductive failure, and by the culling event itself. Farms that invest in longevity-supporting management, including careful transition period nutrition, lameness prevention, and body condition management, produce cows that live longer, healthier lives with better lifetime welfare outcomes.