Animal Health & Welfare

Studies have shown that the behaviour of cattle housed indoors is significantly different from that of animals housed outside. Passive avoidance of dominant animals is frequently seen outside.  The limited space available indoors restricts the ability to avoid other animals and tends to heighten the levels of direct aggression seen.

However, recent work at SAC has shown that there are no behavioural differences between cattle housed indoors permanently and those that are merely over-wintered. This suggests that the impact of housing has a similar effect on behaviour irrespective of time.  Repetitive, stereotypical behaviour seen in many captive species in zoos and some farming environments was not observed in any system in this study.  

Permanent indoor housing does, however, appear to increase the degree of lameness and knee swellings compared to other dairy systems.

On the positive side, zero-grazing farms were found to have cattle which were less flighty when being handled and reacted with less fear to an unfamiliar human.

More information on SAC’s work in this area can be found under ‘Behavioural studies related to the welfare of extensively managed dairy cows’ on the right.