The transition period around calving is the highest-risk welfare period for dairy cows. Ketosis, milk fever, and displaced abomasum are common, painful conditions that modern dairy management can dramatically reduce.
Transition period diseases cause significant suffering that is often underrecognised because affected cows continue to be milked rather than removed from production. Ketotic cows experience nausea, weakness, and reduced appetite — states that compromise welfare daily and for extended periods. Milk fever with collapse is an acute, dramatic welfare event requiring immediate treatment to prevent cardiac arrest. The downstream effects of subclinical disease — increased lameness, metritis, and reproductive failure — extend the welfare impact of poor transition management across an entire lactation. The welfare science and the economics align strongly: herds with good transition management have lower disease rates, higher production, and better welfare simultaneously. Transition cow management is therefore one of the highest-leverage welfare interventions available to dairy producers.