Animal wellbeing is in the spotlight, and DairyNZ is drawing on new research to show how our pasture-based farms measure up worldwide.
Inside Dairy
4 min read
Understanding cow wellbeing today helps keep New Zealand dairy competitive and ready for the future.
Expectations around farming are constantly evolving. Where the historic focus was on milk quality and food safety, today’s requirements also include animal health and emissions. The attributes of high-value milk continue to shift alongside customer demands.
In New Zealand, dairy competitiveness is about more than keeping costs low. Using futurist thinking can help us explore how animal care and farming might change in response to environmental limits, new technologies, and shifting societal expectations.
This approach highlights possible pathways for the sector and helps farmers consider options for adapting and thriving into the future.
The Competitive Farm Systems – Frontier Farms project examined which parts of New Zealand’s dairy system are already well-positioned to meet future needs.
Early findings show that animal wellbeing ranks among the top five factors for keeping the sector competitive. At the same time, the diversity of systems worldwide makes it challenging to compare performance and identify where strengths and risks lie.
Highly controlled environments can influence a cow’s wellbeing in both positive and limiting ways.
Led by Lee Matheson from Perrin Ag, with input from animal welfare scientists, farm systems experts, a farm consultant, and customer insights specialists from dairy companies, a global typology framework that groups farms into different ‘types’ based on eight shared characteristics has been used to explore cow wellbeing across farm systems.
The classification highlights where New Zealand farms share common traits and where they differ, both within the country and compared with farms overseas.
DairyNZ is exploring how wearable technology can provide new insights into cow wellbeing.
The global typology study looked beyond physical farm features to how resources and animal care practices affect cow wellbeing. Cows only have a limited amount of time each day to choose what they want to do. Much of their day is taken up with walking to and from the shed, being milked, and grazing. The remaining ‘free time’ can be spent lying down, exploring, or socialising. The DairyNZ typology framework included milking frequency as a key characteristic to show how cows that are milked three times a day, instead of twice-a-day, have less ‘free time’ which limits their ability to do what they choose.
The framework was applied across dairy systems in the United States, Ireland and China, allowing for meaningful comparisons (see graphic).
A key finding was that highly managed or controlled environments can influence a cow’s wellbeing in both positive and limiting ways. For example, housed systems may help cows stay within a comfortable temperature range and provide shelter, but they can also restrict access to pasture and reduce opportunities to move and explore. Understanding the benefits and trade-offs of the eight characteristics helps assess cow wellbeing across different farm systems, whether in New Zealand’s pasture-based systems or in housed systems overseas.
With animal wellbeing increasingly in the spotlight, understanding how New Zealand farm systems affect cow wellbeing helps show where the sector stands internationally and how it may evolve. DairyNZ is keeping an eye on emerging risks and investing in future-focused research to ensure the sector continues to meet evolving consumer expectations.
To find out more about the Frontier Farms project, check out dairynz.co.nz/mega-dairies
Some of the team behind animal wellbeing research: Dr Stacey Hendriks and Dr Paul Edwards
Animal-based welfare indicators let us know how well a cow is coping with her environment.
Demonstrating the high levels of animal care on New Zealand dairy farms means having reliable, practical tools that measure wellbeing in ways that suit our systems. Because our cows are farmed differently to most dairy systems globally, existing wellbeing measures aren’t well suited to New Zealand. Many focus on a single moment in time and don’t reflect the seasonal variation of our pasture-based farming.
Capturing dairy cow wellbeing across the year is important – for example, what’s measured in winter or during peak lactation may not reflect summer conditions, so a seasonal view gives a clearer picture.
Looking ahead, as the sector is asked to show how cows are cared for, we need methods that don’t add extra work for farmers and, ideally, give useful insights on the farm.
That’s why this work in the Cow Quality of Life project is focused on developing a ‘future-ready’ tool that draws on data already at hand. The aim is to use readily available indicators – the kind you could access tomorrow without creating a major burden – to give a practical picture of wellbeing on-farm.
An animal-based welfare indicator is a measurable sign that tells us how well a cow is coping with her environment. It can be something physical, like body condition or rumen temperature, or behavioural, like lying time or how cows interact with each other. By looking at these indicators across a farm or season, we can get a picture of the cows’ overall wellbeing.
These insights can be linked to cow wellbeing across the season, providing evidence of the high standards of care farmers already deliver.
Welfare indicators can include both resources and management practices – for example, the number of water troughs, or farm policies for identifying and treating health issues. While animal-based indicators are preferred, they are often harder and more expensive to measure.
DairyNZ’s animal welfare and behaviour expert, Stacey Hendriks, is using data from wearable technologies to track cow behaviour and physiology.
“By combining measures like lying time and rumen temperature with on-farm data such as weather, we can link these insights to cow wellbeing across the season. This gives us a way to demonstrate the high standards of care farmers already deliver,” Stacey says.
“Over time, these tools could also build a long-term record of wellbeing on New Zealand dairy farms, supporting farm management, transparency and confidence in the products we produce.”
At this stage, the project is focused on exploring historical data to develop a tool before moving into experimental trials this summer.
With animal wellbeing increasingly in the spotlight, New Zealand’s dairy sector has an opportunity to highlight the strengths of its existing systems. By developing tools suited to our pasture-based systems, DairyNZ aims to give farmers practical ways to understand and maintain high standards of wellbeing while supporting the long-term sustainability of the sector.
This article was originally published in Inside Dairy November-January 2026.
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