Conclusion

Overall, qualitative behaviour assessments, eye area temperature, and reactivity scores during novel object tests may all be valid indicators, sensitive to positive affect and useful tools for assessing positive affect in dairy cattle. When combined, clear separation is clear between our treatment groups, especially the positive group. . However, these measurements are not feasible to perform on-farm for entire herds. As such, these results may be more beneficial for future research and not on-farm assessments, yet.

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It was Eye Area Temperature and Indifferent behaviours that were significantly different within the multivariate model. Individually, these variables could no be validated as physiological and behavioural measures of positive affective states in adult dairy cattle, respectively, as they do not provide enough of a detectable difference to monitor reliably. They should therefore be combined with other variables or measured with high precision instruments, repeatedly, which we demonstrated the feasibility of for future research. This will improve future positive welfare studies and is the first step to developing on-farm monitoring systems for positive well-being in dairy cattle.

 

This study successfully identified differences between treatment groups using physiological and behavioural indicators, and provided the ground work for future studies and demonstrated the feasibility of different animal based measures for assessing dairy cattle welfare. Contributing to the positive welfare research, as this study does, promotes positive consumer-industry relations and ensure Canadian dairy cattle are raised happy and healthy.