The periparturient period — the most welfare-critical phase of dairy cow life
The transition period — the three weeks before and three weeks after calving — is the most physiologically and welfare-challenged phase of dairy cow life. The dramatic metabolic shifts required to shift from pregnancy to lactation create a cascade of potential disease. More dairy cows suffer, are culled, or die during this period than any other. Understanding and managing transition cow welfare is the single highest-impact dairy welfare intervention available to producers.
These conditions don't occur in isolation — metabolic disease cascades, with subclinical ketosis predisposing to displaced abomasum, lameness, and reproductive failure. The welfare cost of this cluster of diseases is enormous in scale (affecting millions of animals) and severity (chronic pain, systemic illness, forced culling of young animals).