Cow Health & Welfare – Farm Size

Cow Health & Welfare – Farm Size

Cows comfort, health, and animal welfare is the basic thing which must be checked and maintained, which farmers and consumers are concerned a lot. Some practices are compared in large and small farms. Consumers and farmers both think that new technologies could be harmful to animals and their production e.g. milk etc. Some think that health practices are less common in large farms than smaller farms. Are these myths being true or not? In this blog, we will discuss it thoroughly.

Connection with the cows

In large dairy farms, the new technologies lessen the direct contact with the cows thus cow’s health and milk production could be effective. It can be in terms of light, air, movement. Whereas in small farms cattle have the freedom to move around and they are mostly in the open air which makes them healthy. But these factors vary from farm to farm, so we cannot say that large farms and technologies only are liable for it.

Measuring behavior

The measuring technique through new technology makes easy for large farms to investigate the eating behavior as well as other activity behaviors of cattle which enhances the health and welfare of cows. Whereas, small farms are not even aware of these technologies and they can lose their animals much earlier than large farms. These can have a large effect on animal health.

Specialized staff:

Larger farms have to be specialized in order to be successful, and therefore are more likely to have professional staff. Small farms can also do an excellent job of course but they need much time and man labor as compare to large farms

Economic difficulties a larger threat to the welfare

Economic effects are the most important for the health of cattle. Larger farms are always able to maintain their expenses. So they are maintaining cows and keep records of their health from bedding to feeding, water intake to heat detection. Whereas, small farms are not always having much amount to do health expenses like large farms.

The large dairy farms can benefit from using new technology that can be mounted to a growing flock, such as milking parlor/systems, and real-time recording of animal health and milk quality indicators or meters can change the way that how we take care of the animals. Cow health can be on the threat to farms that are going out of business. The dairy industry needs to develop proactive solutions for these threats.