Genetic selection for disease resistance in cattle offers long-term welfare benefits by reducing disease prevalence across herds without requiring ongoing individual interventions.
Disease causes suffering. Reducing genetic susceptibility to disease reduces the frequency with which individual animals experience illness and its associated pain. Genetic improvement is a multiplier - improvements to the breeding population benefit all subsequent offspring. Including welfare traits - mastitis resistance, lameness susceptibility, calving ease - in national breeding indices creates systemic welfare improvement that builds with each generation.