Using behavioral indicators to assess and promote positive welfare states in cattle.
Cattle behavioral indicators of positive welfare provide farmers and auditors with practical assessment tools that complement the more familiar negative welfare indicators like lameness and injury. When cattle play — bucking, running in patterns, engaging in mock combat — they signal that their welfare is sufficiently positive to allow energy expenditure on non-survival activities. Play requires that basic needs are met, safety is perceived, and positive emotional states are present. Farms where cattle regularly play and show affiliative social behavior toward pen mates are demonstrating welfare outcomes that correlate with good management across multiple welfare domains. Integrating positive behavioral indicators into farm welfare assessment represents the same shift from welfare-as-absence to welfare-as-positive-state that is transforming the broader welfare field.