Dairy cows need 10 to 14 hours of daily lying time for health and welfare. When housing prevents adequate rest, the welfare and productivity consequences are severe and well-documented.
Adequate lying time and quality rest are fundamental welfare needs for dairy cows that are frequently compromised in intensively managed systems. Cows deprived of adequate lying time show physiological stress responses and divert energy from production and reproduction to standing. Cubicle design that does not match cow body dimensions causes discomfort during lying, rising, and resting, leading cows to avoid poorly designed cubicles and further reducing lying time. The precision livestock farming revolution has made automated lying time monitoring practical, enabling identification of welfare problems in real time. Farms that achieve high average lying times with low variability between individuals demonstrate that appropriate housing design and management can deliver good resting welfare at scale.