Pain is a natural condition for all animals and humans. But when it comes to dairy cattle specifically, the intensity and duration of their pain can have significant influence on both their welfare and productivity.
Katherine Creutzinger, researcher at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, presented an in-depth exploration of the topic of dairy cattle pain at the 2024 Western Canadian Dairy Seminar. She noted that pain can negatively affect dairy calf and cow welfare within the Three Circles of Animal Welfare model:
- Health, injury, and disease – Actual or potential tissue damage.
- Ability to perform natural behaviors – Eating, drinking, walking, standing, lying, ruminating.
- Mental and emotional states – Unpleasant sensory or emotional experience.
One or more of these facets may be affected at the same time, depending on the source of the pain. Creutzinger also said pain is affected by both duration and intensity. “Negative effects of pain vary based on both factors, but pain has more negative impacts as one or both factors increases,” she explained.
For example, “udder engorgement can be uncomfortable but is quickly relieved by milking,” she noted. “Whereas broken tails, which are a result of broken ligaments and joint dislocation, may take months to heal causing more severe pain to cows.”
While some sources of pain – such as a foot injury or clinical mastitis – may be obvious, Creutzinger said other conditions, such as metritis, may produce less obvious pain. In either case, the affected animals need both therapeutic attention and pain management support.
Productivity also suffers when cows are in pain. Reluctance to travel to the water trough can result in dehydration and reduced milk production. Avoidance of competition at the feed bunk can spiral into metabolic diseases and decreased rumination. Refraining from normal estrus expression can lead to missed heats and poorer reproductive efficiency.
Creutzinger said the advent of wearable sensors that track factors like physical activity, rumination patterns, body temperature, and lying time has contributed positively to pain management because the subtle changes they detect can help identify pain sources earlier in their progression when they can be proactively addressed.
One area of dairy management ripe for improvement is the pain animals potentially incur when they are removed from the herd. Creutzinger cited data indicating that dairy cows may remain in transit for up to 2 weeks between their dairy of origin and their final slaughter destination. Udder engorgement, emaciation, and lameness have been widely documented in these cows.
The researcher suggested management changes to reduce these painful experiences. One example is to hold cows on the farm until they have recovered from lameness or mastitis, which also will help them add body condition and market value. Another is to gradually dry cows off via reduced milking frequency and a lower-energy diet to prevent udder engorgement upon shipping.
Creutzinger said proactive management of pain in dairy animals will be important in earning the consuming public’s trust of dairy farming practices and products. “The public has an expectation for dairy cattle to have good welfare,” she declared. “Addressing pain is important to production, but it is also critical to animal welfare, which plays an important role in making sure the dairy industry is sustainable.”
