Cattle benefit from environmental enrichment including brushes, novel objects, and varied substrates that allow expression of natural exploratory and play behaviour, particularly in indoor systems with limited environmental complexity.
Cattle in barren indoor environments have limited opportunities for exploratory behaviour and may redirect foraging motivation toward inappropriate behaviours including licking concrete, wood, or other cattle. Environmental enrichment that provides novel stimuli, challenges, and opportunities for natural behaviour directly improves welfare by reducing motivation for harmful redirected behaviours. The welfare benefit of even simple enrichment like rotating brushes is measurable in reduced stereotypic behaviour.