Positive welfare outcomes in cattle go beyond absence of disease to include positive experiences, natural behaviour expression, and good quality of life.
Positive welfare science for cattle represents the frontier of welfare assessment and improvement. Beyond preventing disease and suffering, good cattle welfare includes the experience of positive states - curiosity, social engagement, comfort, and contentment. Measuring these positive indicators provides a more complete picture of welfare than disease-based metrics alone and identifies welfare improvements that disease surveillance misses. The best-performing farms achieve both low disease and high positive welfare.