Feed efficiency in livestock production affects both resource use and animal welfare. Understanding the relationship between nutrition, health and welfare improves farm outcomes.
Nutritional welfare is fundamental to animal wellbeing. Animals on suboptimal diets experience hunger, metabolic stress and increased disease susceptibility. Dairy cows pushed to maximum production through energy-dense diets develop SARA, laminitis and fertility problems. Livestock that cannot compete at feed troughs - due to social hierarchy or insufficient bunk space - experience hunger and growth depression. Precision nutrition systems that provide individually tailored diets reduce both waste and welfare-compromising nutritional stress. Feed welfare is inseparable from overall farm animal welfare.