The productive lifespan of dairy cows has shortened significantly under intensive selection for milk yield. Improving longevity is simultaneously a welfare, economic, and environmental priority for the industry.
Short productive lifespan reflects a welfare failure. Cows culled at 2.5 lactations typically leave the herd because of painful conditions — lameness causing inability to walk to milking, mastitis causing severe udder inflammation, or reproductive disease causing inability to conceive. Each of these is a welfare problem that cut short a life rather than the natural end of productive capacity. Extending longevity requires genetic selection for health traits, investment in comfortable housing and flooring, lameness prevention and treatment programmes, and nutritional management that supports metabolic health throughout lactation. Long-lived cows demonstrate that good welfare is achievable and economically viable.