Modern dairy cows are culled at an average age of 5-6 years despite a natural lifespan of 20 years, with most culling driven by reproductive failure, mastitis, and lameness that are preventable with better welfare management.
The declining longevity of dairy cows reflects a welfare and sustainability problem simultaneously. High-yielding cows face metabolic demands that push them toward the edge of physiological tolerance, compromising immune function and creating vulnerability to infection, lameness, and reproductive failure. The brief productive lives of modern dairy cows mean most animals are chronically managing high production stress. Mastitis causes significant pain — cows with mastitis show reduced movement, appetite depression, and pain responses — and affects the majority of dairy cows at least once during their lifetime. Welfare improvements that extend productive life — better lameness detection and treatment, reduced peak milk yield selection, better metabolic management — simultaneously improve animal welfare and reduce the environmental footprint of dairy production.