Improving dairy cow longevity reduces replacement costs and welfare burdens from frequent culling, with evidence-based management practices extending productive lifespans significantly.
Dairy cow longevity is both a welfare metric and an economic indicator. Short productive lives reflect high rates of welfare-compromising conditions — lameness, mastitis, and reproductive disease — that drive early culling. Farms achieving high longevity typically have superior hoof health programs, low somatic cell counts, and better transition cow management. From a welfare perspective, extending productive life through prevention of the conditions that cause suffering and culling is a high-impact, economically aligned intervention.