Dairy goats are prolific milk producers but face welfare challenges in intensive systems. Understanding their social and behavioural needs is key to improvement.
Dairy goat welfare shares many challenges with dairy cattle but is less scrutinised by welfare auditors and consumers. Early kid separation, painful disbudding without pain relief, restricted movement in bare housing, and parasite burdens are endemic welfare problems across global dairy goat production. Goats are particularly sensitive to social instability — regrouping and transport cause significant stress. Welfare improvements centre on providing pain relief for all husbandry procedures, enriched housing with elevated resting areas and browsing opportunities, maintaining stable social groups, and developing less abrupt weaning protocols. The relatively small average herd size in goat farming creates opportunities for higher individual attention and welfare monitoring.