The transition period — the three weeks before and after calving — is the highest-risk phase of the dairy cow production cycle, when metabolic disease, immune dysfunction, and welfare compromise are most severe.
Transition period welfare encompasses the acute suffering of clinical disease — the pain of metritis, the weakness of hypocalcaemia, the nausea of ketosis — and the chronic immune suppression that makes cows vulnerable to multiple concurrent conditions. Cows experiencing their first calving are at highest risk because they have no prior physiological experience of the extreme metabolic demands of early lactation. The welfare challenge is that transition problems often develop rapidly and can be severe before clinical signs are apparent; systematic monitoring using ketone testing and locomotion scoring allows earlier intervention. Overcrowded fresh cow pens, where cows must compete for feed and lying space at the most vulnerable point in their cycle, are a common and preventable cause of welfare deterioration. Transition management represents one of the highest-return welfare and productivity interventions in dairy farming.