Enriching the lives of dairy cattle with opportunities to express adaptive behaviors

Good animal welfare means that cattle are not only healthy and productive, but also that they can express important behav­ioral adaptations, and that negative experiences are minimized while opportunities for positive ones are provided. Environ­mental enrichments allow cattle to express species-specific and life-stage-appropriate adaptive behaviors in captivity. To be ef­fective, environmental enrichments must be used and wanted by the animals and result in measurable benefits to welfare. These benefits may be transient (i.e., positive emotions while using the enrichments) or long-term, such as improved coping skills or stress resilience, resulting in cumulative positive wel­fare balance. Scientific studies have identified both experimen­tal and practical options for relevant environmental enrich­ment for dairy cattle of different life stages.