Welfare of dairy cows

**Background:** This Scientific Opinion was produced by the EFSA Panel on Animal Health and Welfare in response to a European Commission mandate under the Farm to Fork strategy. The mandate requested an updated scientific basis for potential revisions to EU animal welfare legislation, specifically Council Directive 98/58/EC concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes. The opinion covers three assessments: (1) description of prevalent housing systems in the EU, (2) analysis of five specific welfare consequences (locomotory disorders including lameness, mastitis, restriction of movement and resting problems, inability to perform comfort behaviour, and metabolic disorders), and (3) identification of farm characteristics that can classify farms at risk of poor welfare.

**Methods:** The opinion was based on extensive literature searches of peer-reviewed scientific articles from Web of Science, supplemented by grey literature and official EU statistics. Literature searches were conducted for each welfare consequence with defined inclusion/exclusion criteria and time periods (primarily 2010–2022). For Assessment 3, an Expert Knowledge Elicitation (EKE) was developed using an adapted Nominal Group Technique (NGT) because available scientific literature could not identify consistent associations between readily available farm data (e.g., milk yield, herd size) and cow welfare outcomes. The EKE involved 8 experts who ranked farm characteristics and elicited thresholds for animal-based measures through a structured consensus process.

**Key Results:** The most prevalent housing systems in the EU are cubicle (free-stall) housing, followed by open-bedded systems and tie-stalls. The proportion of farms offering pasture access has declined in several EU Member States. For locomotory disorders, lameness prevalence varied markedly within and between systems: 7.9% to over 20% in tie-stalls, 6% to 55% in cubicles, 6% to 27% in straw yards, and 4% to 25% in compost-bedded packs. Temporary access to pasture was associated with lower prevalence of integument damage compared to zero-grazing. For mastitis, no housing system was consistently superior; type of bedding was the only housing-related hazard, with sand-bedded cubicles associated with lower somatic cell counts than organic bedding materials. Restriction of movement was ranked from most to least restrictive: year-round tethering, cubicle housing, open-bedded systems, and pasture. Tethering severely restricts lying down/rising up movements, lying postures, oestrus, calving, and social behaviour. For metabolic disorders, no housing system was consistently superior; these are linked to diet composition and feeding management rather than housing type. The EKE identified five farm characteristics for identifying farms at risk of poor welfare: (1) more than one cow per cubicle at maximum stocking density, (2) limited total space <7 m²/cow, (3) inappropriate cubicle dimensions for cow size, (4) high annual on-farm mortality >8% including emergency slaughter, and (5) less than 2 months per year with access to pasture.

**Clinical Implications:** The opinion recommends that dairy cows should not be permanently housed in tie-stalls due to continuous and severe restriction of movement and social behaviour. At least one cubicle per cow should be provided, with dry, soft, and deformable lying surfaces—preferably deep bedding with minimum 30 cm on concrete or 5 cm compressed material on mats (equivalent to ~3 kg straw per cubicle per day). A total indoor area of at least 9 m²/cow is recommended. Access to well-managed pasture should be provided. The risk-based scheme developed from the EKE should be piloted to validate its usefulness before implementation. For farms identified as at-risk, specific animal-based measures should be assessed including lameness (gait) scoring, hygiene scoring, integument lesion scoring, rising behaviour assessment, and observation of agonistic interactions.