November 18, 2025 • 35 mins
How is the great animal care already happening on your farm helping New Zealand dairy stay ahead of global market expectations?
In this episode of Talking Dairy, we explore why animal care matters for New Zealand’s dairy competitiveness and how farmers have helped shape DairyNZ’s research right from the start.
You’ll hear from Penny Timmer-Arends and Dr Stacey Hendriks as they explain what markets and consumers are asking for, how NZ compares internationally, and what influences cow comfort and welfare in our pasture-based farm systems.
Penny and Stacey also discuss the challenges to good cow welfare that farmers are managing, like heat stress, comfortable lying surfaces and seasonal staffing pressure. They explain how current DairyNZ research – including work using wearable tech – is building better insights into how cows experience their environment, so farmers can make informed decisions, and our sector can stay future-ready.
This episode gives you a practical overview of where animal care expectations are heading and the science that supports farmers to stay ahead.
Links to more information mentioned in this episode:
Animal Welfare - DairyNZ | DairyNZ
Research - Science Projects - Heat Stress | DairyNZ
Research - Science Projects - United States Mega Dairies | DairyNZ
Download the Preventing and managing lameness guide
Have feedback or ideas for future episodes? Email us at talkingdairy@dairynz.co.nz
Stay up to date with advice, latest research, tools and resources. Read, browse, scroll, listen, or be there in person. Visit dairynz.co.nz/get-connected
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:01):
Kiora and welcome to Talking Dairy.
I'm your host Jack McGowan fromDairyNZ.
It's great to have you with us.
When it comes to caring for ourcows, New Zealand dairy farmers
already do a lot.
Our animals spend most of theyear outdoors where they've got
space to move and they'recomfortable in their
environment.
But as global markets andconsumers ask more questions,
(00:21):
it's becoming more important toshow the care that's already
happening on farm.
In this episode, we're talkingabout how animal care helps keep
New Zealand dairy competitiveand how new research and tools,
including wearable tech, canhelp us stay ahead of the herd.
That's where DairyNZ's EnhancedAnimal Care program comes in.
It's focused on keeping NewZealand internationally
(00:42):
competitive in animal care,grounded in science and future
ready.
More and more people want toknow not just what we produce
but how we look after ouranimals.
This programme of work isdesigned to help us do just
that.
Joining me are Penny TimmerAhrens, who leads the Enhanced
Animal Care program, and Dr.
Stacey Hendricks, a dairy and Zscientist working on cow health
(01:04):
behaviour and welfare.
Together they'll unpack theresearch, the opportunities, and
how technology, like wearables,could help farmers show the
great care already happening onfarm.
Let's get into it.
Tina Kurua, welcome back toTalking Dairy.
Both of you have been herebefore, but give us a quick
introduction about who you are.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
Kirna Jack, I'm Penny, the senior animal care
specialist at DairyNZ, and withJenny Jaygo Look After Our
Enhanced Animal Care Programme,where we're investing in tools
and resources for farmers, sothings around like mastitis and
lameness.
We're doing policy advocacy onbehalf of farmers to the
government and also investing inresearch for sort of current
risks and future opportunities.
(01:45):
Thank you.
And Stacy?
SPEAKER_00 (01:47):
My name's Stacy Hendricks, and I am a scientist,
and I'm based in the LincolnDairy and Z office, and I work
in the science teampredominantly in animal science.
So I'm quite involved in theEnhanced Animal Care program
across several pieces of work.
But predominantly the work thatI'm involved in is both
(02:07):
targeting some of the challengesthat farmers are facing in terms
of trying to reduce some of therisks within our system.
So things like heat stress,which we'll talk about a little
bit in this episode.
And I also work in sort of themore future focused space.
So that's looking atopportunities that are on the
horizon.
How can we continue to improveor continue doing the great
(02:31):
things that we're doing on farmwhen it comes to animal care?
SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
Now, Penny, there seems to be many different ways
people talk about looking afteranimals.
We hear words like welfare,well-being, stockmanship, care,
and more recently, sentience.
What do these terms actuallymean and how do they fit
together?
SPEAKER_01 (02:49):
I guess thinking about animal care, it's the care
farmers are providing.
It's that husbandry andstockmanship, those things
they're doing to make sure theircows are fed healthy and
comfortable, they've gotpreventative plans in place,
they're monitoring and they'refinding animals and treating
them.
So it's the thing farmers aredoing, and we tend to talk about
animal care at DNZ because we'rehere to support farmers to farm
(03:10):
well.
And then welfare or well-beingis sort of the outcome of that,
that care plus other factors.
And those other factors whichmake up sort of animal welfare,
we can look at there's a modelcalled the Five Domains model,
actually developed in MasseyUniversity in New Zealand, but
is now used internationally.
And those other domains thatwe're looking at are nutrition,
(03:31):
health, environment, andbehaviour.
And so if you're kind of meetinga cow's needs across those
domains, she'll be experiencingpositive welfare.
And then as science advances,we're sort of gaining a better
understanding of animalsentience.
So recognising that they havefeelings and their world and
their experience matter to them.
That's where kind of the shiftthat farmers will be hearing
(03:53):
around positive welfare andthose language of things that
matter to cows, so like comfortand pleasure and other things
like frustration.
So those kind of feelings and Iguess cow emotions.
And so that's sort of comingthrough to having a good life
for animals, not just avoidingkind of negative health impacts.
And sort of an example to tryand make that a little bit more
(04:15):
real, because that was a bit ofa word salad, is if we think
about calf shed flooring.
So there's been research done,calves raised on stone flooring
versus wood chip flooring havevery similar health and
productivity outcomes.
So in terms of disease andweight gain and growth, very
similar.
So you're meeting those kind ofbasic welfare requirements.
(04:37):
But calves reared on stones areless likely to engage in play
behavior and they're a littlebit colder.
So they can't kind of runaround.
They don't have that confidencein their footing versus calves
on wood chips, which you'll seea mob of 20 calves sort of doing
a bit of a zoomies and houringaround the shed, so they can
have access to that positivebehaviour, even though those
kind of health and productivitymetrics are much the same in
(05:00):
both of those settings.
Because I'm a bit of a policynerd and tend to think about the
Animal Welfare Act, and Stacy'sa technical expert in the animal
welfare science domain, we turnto default to animal welfare,
which maybe has a little bit ofa negative connotation, which is
where I think well-being can bea really useful framing of
talking about positive welfare.
(05:21):
But, you know, welfare andwell-being are interchangeable.
And then I guess the key ideabehind all of these terms in
language is the same, trying topull it together.
You know, animals are cared forand their experiences matter.
SPEAKER_02 (05:33):
Thanks, Penny.
Now, Stacy Penny has talkedabout how our understanding of
animal care has evolved fromthat idea of just thinking about
making sure they're not havingnegative experiences to actually
recognizing they need positiveexperiences.
Stacy, you've been looking intowhat's driving those
expectations, both here andoverseas, and you've spoken with
milk processors, industrygroups, and researchers.
(05:55):
From your perspective, why is itimportant for New Zealand
farmers to maintain their highstandard of animal care?
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
So, yeah, as you've alluded to, we've gone and
brought together perspectivesfrom different groups across the
sector, so milk processors,industry groups, and
researchers.
A bit of work that we've done inDairyNZ as part of a project to
try and understand what like thetop five factors are that are
keeping New Zealand's dairysector competitive
(06:24):
internationally, identifiedanimal care as one of those top
five factors.
So that really tells us thatanimal care and the standards
that we uphold are really partof our reputation and what we're
actually known for globally.
That's kind of one key componentof what's really allowing us to
understand where we sitinternationally.
(06:45):
But alongside that, there's alsobeen research undertaken about
consumer preferences.
So a lot of research groups haveundertaken work in this space,
but in particular, one that'sclose to home is the Ministry of
Primary Industries, does someindustry insight reporting, and
they looked at consumerpreferences and identified that
(07:07):
consumers value products thatcome from animals that are well
cared for and that are livinggood lives.
And so animal welfare is seen asa core product attribute.
And it's not just about milkquality anymore, it's about how
that milk is produced, andthat's what people are willing
to pay for.
And that's being reallyreflected and recognised by milk
(07:27):
processors.
You will have seen potentiallysome of the initiatives around
sustainability and also animalcare is being captured within
that.
So some milk processors arerolling out programs where their
farmers have access to highermilk prices.
So an example of that isFonterra's Cooperative
Difference.
And Sinlei's got a similarprogram called Lead with Pride.
(07:50):
And this is giving farmers anability to have a formalized
like plan on farm.
So animal well-being plans, forexample, that are allowing them
to then report back to theircustomers and show in a credible
way that we're providing greatpreventative care on farm.
So bringing together theseinsights from like these
(08:11):
different areas reallyreinforces to us that what is
good for animals is good for ourmarkets, and it's really
important for the long-termsustainability of our sector.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (08:22):
So now we know why animal care is important, and
our ambition, of course, is tostay internationally
competitive.
Penny, how do we actually knowwhere New Zealand sits compared
with other dairy systems aroundthe world?
SPEAKER_01 (08:35):
So we've developed a global framework for classifying
cow well-being on dairy farmsusing eight characteristics that
sort of contribute to cowwell-being.
Another framework farmers willalready be familiar with is our
farm production framework.
So that classifies whetheryou're sort of a system one to
five based on your feedresources.
This is sort of a similarapproach, but trying to
(08:56):
understand the characteristicsthat influence cow well-being.
And then we can make comparisonsacross sort of New Zealand, the
US, Ireland, and China.
We can kind of look at differentdairy systems across those
characteristics to get a bit ofan understanding of where we sit
and depending on where kind ofthe future goes and what
consumers value, what we're kindof prepared to capitalise on and
(09:17):
really take advantage of.
There's a story in the Novemberissue of Inside Dairy around the
typology work, which has adiagram, which I think makes it
a little bit easier tounderstand.
But just picking one of thosecharacteristics is we looked at
milking frequency.
And so cows could be milked oncea day, twice a day, some sort of
variation of flexible milking,three to three times a day,
(09:39):
which is does happen in thosesort of really large US dairy
farms.
And the amount of time a cowspends at milking impacts the
amount of time she has to spendbeing a cow.
So if you're milking three timesa day, she's probably spending a
lot of time being milked orgrazing or, you know, eating a
lot of food to keep up with thatmilk production versus a farmer
(10:01):
who's maybe once a day or moreof a sort of flexible milking
strategy.
She's got more time to be a cow.
She won't be as highly driven toeat.
I mean, she might spend moretime lying down, ruminating, um,
having social interactions,doing sort of things that are
important to cows.
And I guess using this globaltypology, it also identified
(10:22):
that every system has sometrade-offs.
So those highly managed or housesystems can protect cows from
heat and cold.
I mean, they're indoors, they'vegot shelter all the time, but it
might restrict some of theirmovement or natural behaviours,
um, like LBL to sort of lie flatout on their sides.
Whereas pasture-based systemsare really good for allowing
(10:42):
that freedom of movement andgrazing and exploration.
I mean, we've seen cows out inthe paddock having a scratch on
a post, but it does expose cowsto environmental stresses, so
really hot weather or prolongedum wet and cold weather.
And I guess regardless of whatsystem you're in and what
potential restrictions areplaced on cows, that good
management and pharma care isalways going to be really key to
(11:04):
achieving good welfare, kind ofregardless of what your
infrastructural resources are.
So against the a backdrop ofchanging consumer expectations,
as Stacy spoke about it, peopleare interested in how their milk
is produced and how those cowsare looked after.
We're really well positioned totake advantage of that customer
demand for like kind ofnaturally produced milk.
(11:26):
People like that our cows areraised outdoors.
So that's kind of at thatinternational comparison level.
But then to try and betterunderstand the challenges and
opportunities at a farm level,we created a different tool
again, which Stacy can talkabout.
SPEAKER_02 (11:40):
Okay, Stacy, let's do that.
We've talked about how NewZealand farms compare
internationally based on systemlevel characteristics, but what
about at the farm level forpasture-based dairy farms?
What are the things on aday-to-day basis that influence
how cows actually experiencetheir lives?
SPEAKER_00 (11:58):
What Penny had talked about was really about
comparing our farm systemsinternationally at kind of a
higher level, but obviously wehave to recognise that not every
farm system in New Zealand isexactly the same.
And they'll have differences interms of how they're resourced,
the climate that they're within,and how they manage their
(12:20):
system, which will influence howa cow experiences her like
day-to-day.
So effectively, the purpose ofthe work that I'm going to talk
about is that we wanted toreally try and characterize
across a subset of New Zealandfarms, like what does our
average farm system look like?
And how does it maybe differacross farm systems?
(12:42):
And so we wanted to capturewhere are the opportunities to
enhance cow well-being in termsof what are some of the
opportunities that farms canalready provide or are already
providing, and maybe there'ssome farmers that are already
ahead of the curve, and can weuse some of that information to
guide other farmers to get tothe same sort of place, or also
(13:03):
highlighting where there arerisks within our systems, and
obviously that's going to bedependent on the individual
farm.
But if we could capture risksthat like are consistently
happening across the board wherethere are a large number of
farmers that are maybeexperiencing challenges within
certain areas, that would giveus a little bit of an indication
in terms of where we might needto focus our attention to ensure
(13:26):
that we then can really maintainthat international
competitiveness when you take itsort of upper level, but also to
help on the ground like improveanimal care and support farmers
with the right tools andresources that they need to
actually address some of thesechallenges.
So, actually, to start off with,to try and actually characterize
this and understand where thoseopportunities and risks are, we
(13:48):
had to go out and firstlydevelop a bespoke tool
effectively.
So we designed what we've calledthe Cow Quality of Life
Assessment Tool, and that's beendesigned specifically for New
Zealand's pasture-based systems.
And the reason we did that isbecause while there's been
similar work done in housesystems, we couldn't just take
that same tool from a housesystem and put it into a pasture
(14:13):
context because we had toacknowledge that, you know,
there are differences betweenour systems, with one key
difference being the seasonalnature of our systems, where we
are carving in seasonallyconcentrated time frames, and
then you add on a layer of cowsbeing outside, and you've got to
contend with the weather.
And so that adds somecomplexities into the farm
(14:35):
systems that we're managing.
So we started off by developingthe assessment tool based on the
five domains framework, whichPenny talked about earlier.
So this is really to capture aholistic picture of a cow's
lived experience.
So the four key functionaldomains are nutrition,
(14:56):
environment, health, andbehaviour.
And basically, the five domainsmodel really reflects that
within each of those areas, theyall have can have a different
effect on an animal's livedexperience.
We based our framework on thosefour key areas.
And then we also had a farmerworkshop while we were
(15:17):
developing this tool.
And during that sort ofpreliminary phase of
development, we got some pharmafeedback that they felt one area
that was really missing was thepeople area, and that was to
recognise that staff experienceand staffing levels across the
season can really impact ourability to provide certain
levels of animal care.
(15:37):
So we went and um tweaked ouroriginal pilot tool and we added
in that fifth area, and then wewent over to more than 200 farms
and we sat down at the kitchentable with a range of farmers
and questioned them with aquestionnaire about their care
practices across the season.
(15:58):
So the actual tool we developedcaptured 21 different areas of
the farm system, and then usingthe questionnaire, we asked them
different questions about thedifferent challenges and
opportunities that they hadthroughout the year, and we then
scored each area a low,moderate, or high risk.
So the purpose of doing that wasto really capture periods of the
(16:21):
year like recognizing thatseasonal influence where, for
example, staffing levels,perhaps it's more of a low risk
that you don't have adequatestaffing levels to meet your
animal care needs during theautumn period, for example.
But come springtime when you'vegot all your cows carving within
(16:42):
sort of a 12-week window, you'vesort of maybe got additional
pressures on your farm system,and that might impact your
ability to actually provide thelevel of care you need, also
given that you know it's a timewhere you've got higher rates of
transition cow diseases andthings like that.
So that was really great to seethat we were able to kind of
(17:03):
capture those unique differenceswithin our system.
But in terms of the resultsoverall, we were able to
highlight that 85% of thoseareas were low risk across all
seasons that we captured.
So some examples of those werethat we're we tend to see that
we seem to be feeding our cowswell, we're providing them with
(17:24):
high quality feed throughout theyear.
We're very proactive in terms ofdealing with health issues.
We're providing adequate spacefor animals to graze freely, and
we're allowing them withopportunities for social contact
with their herdmates.
We did, however, identify a fewpotential areas for improvement.
(17:46):
And these are relatively wellknown, I think.
So seasonal challenges thatfarmers are probably well aware
of.
So issues around staffing, as Isort of alluded to in the
springtime, for example,potential challenges around
providing adequate lyingsurfaces that are dry and
comfortable throughout theseason.
So, particularly for those farmsthat are maybe in quite cold and
(18:10):
wet areas or they're winteringon crops.
And then another key area weidentified was heat stress risk.
And so this is obviously reallyrestricted to summer and
potentially maybe a bit ofautumn, depending on what region
you're in.
But really, these highlightedareas that both farmers and
dairy and Z are already workingto improve, but it gives us the
(18:33):
opportunity to focus on where wecan put future research
resources so that we can improvethese areas further and provide
farmers with the tools that theyneed to address these
challenges.
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
Penny, Stacy has highlighted some of the
challenges inherent to thepasture-based system in New
Zealand.
So heat stress, lying surfaces,and staffing levels.
Can you give us an example ofhow farmers can kind of tackle
those areas?
SPEAKER_01 (19:01):
Yep, because their system level risks, they're not
easy to solve.
I think if we could control theweather, that would be a really
simple solution.
Um, unfortunately, uhunrealistic.
So, yeah, obviously they'reconnected to lots of parts of
the farm system and there isn'ta quick fix.
So I guess taking uh comfortablelying in winter, um, Southland
(19:21):
and Otago farmers in particularhave done a lot of work on this
over the last sort of six toseven years.
But it wasn't simple.
It wasn't just, oh, we'llreplace this crop with grass.
That has impacts on feedavailability through winter.
It's going to impact how muchbalads you need to cut through
the rest of the year to be ableto feed your cows.
Do you need to change the bodycondition score that you dry off
(19:42):
at because you're not going tobe able to put on as much?
What's your soil structure?
What's your land type?
What can you grow?
What can't you grow?
It's not simple.
And so farmers have made reallygreat progress, but it's taken
time and it's taken, I guess,iterating their systems over
years.
And we do actually have someinformation on that.
We've surveyed farmers and weknow they're doing some really
(20:03):
good stuff around managing theircritical source areas,
backfencing, portable watertroughs, having plans in place
for their staff to shift thecows, you know, when the soil
gets to a particular condition.
So they've done a lot of work inthat space already.
But yeah, just belying the pointthat it wasn't easy.
And then heat stress is probablythe next one where we know with
(20:24):
climate change modelling thatit's going to become more of a
challenge.
It's it already is, but it'sincreasingly going to become
something farmers need tograpple with.
I think there's something like67 heat stress days a year in
the Waikastor.
So part of the Enhanced AnimalCare Programme is a project
called Comfortable CowsOutdoors, led by Dr.
Charlotte Reed, and that islooking at doing the research to
(20:46):
understand what mitigations workand how farmers can practically
apply them.
Keeping our cows outdoors isgreat.
It's a real competitiveadvantage, as we've sort of
already discussed.
But yeah, then managing the heatload in summer can be quite
challenging.
So in the Comfortable CowsOutdoors project, we're going to
be doing a trial this summercomparing shade with sprinklers
(21:08):
with altered milking times tosee how do those mitigation
strategies stack up.
I guess the gold standard forheat stress is shade, it cuts
the solar radiation.
But it's not really practical totell farmers to plant shade on
every square hectare of theirfarm.
That would be a kiwi fruitorchard, which, yeah, really
shady, but not conducive tomilking cows.
(21:30):
And also there's differentregional differences.
So, based on some previousmodelling that we've done, we
think the Y cartou, BayerPlenty, and Canterbury are most
likely to have more heat stressdays.
Canterbury, with its large farmsand center pivot irrigation,
will need different solutions toY Cartour.
So solving the sun, or I guessimpacts of heat stress on cows,
(21:50):
is going to take different toolsand different ways of
integrating them into the farmsystems.
SPEAKER_02 (21:56):
The comfortable cows outdoors trial that you're
talking about, Penny, that'ssomething that farmers have been
asking for.
You know, more information aboutwhat mitigation options are the
best ones to use in theircontext.
So that's really cool to seethat coming to fruition this
summer.
I'm very excited to see theoutcomes of it.
Okay, so we know New Zealandfarms are already doing really
(22:18):
well in lots of areas, and ouroutdoor systems give cows space
to move and graze and becomfortable.
But traditional welfare measuresdon't always make it easy to
prove that.
Stacy, can you talk us throughhow we assess welfare and how
the science we're doing now ishelping us to be future ready?
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
Yeah, so I'll talk first a little bit about how we
traditionally have measuredwelfare.
So you may or may not have comeacross the term animal-based
measure, and two other keymeasures to measure welfare are
resource and management-basedmeasures.
So animal-based measures areseen as the gold standard.
(22:59):
Resource and management-basedmeasures are still helpful, but
effectively they don'tnecessarily tell us how that
animal is experiencing herenvironment.
So an animal-based measure canreally tell us about something
that's already happened or ishappening to an animal, whereas
a resource and amanagement-based measure,
they're both kind ofsituational.
(23:20):
So it's more about what thatanimal has access to, but it
doesn't necessarily mean thatshe's going to access that
resource.
So if I give you an easyexample, an animal-based measure
that we already use on farmquite commonly is body condition
score.
So we go out and we assess thebody condition of our animals,
(23:41):
and that can usually tell us if,for example, the body condition
score is a little bit lower thanwe'd expect.
That might indicate that thatanimal is sick, or that, you
know, she's just immediatelypost-carving and she's lost
quite a bit of body conditionscore and she's mobilized a lot
of body condition to support hermilk production.
So they don't necessarilyinherently tell us if it's a
(24:05):
like a normal outcome or if it'sa negative one.
In the case that if she's sick,you know, you might need to do
something about that.
But in the case of her being alittle bit light post-carving,
you know, just ensuring thatshe's got adequate uh
high-quality feed is what you'dsort of do to support that.
But ultimately, it does stilltell you how that animal is
(24:27):
being impacted at the time.
Whereas in the case of aresource-based measure, so that
could be, you know, how muchfeed is available to an animal,
or that she has actually got arange of different options
available to her in terms ofdifferent feed types.
So that can still be anindicator of welfare and that,
(24:48):
you know, generally high qualityfeed availability is a good
welfare indicator in terms ofthat she's likely to be able to
meet her nutritional needs.
But if she's a sick animal andshe's feeling a little bit under
the weather and isn't able toeat that food or isn't able to
access that food because she'shaving trouble, you know,
(25:09):
getting up and moving around andgrazing or has low energy
levels, then of course, likethat's only going to tell you so
much.
And that's where thatanimal-based measure really will
tell you the full story, really.
So that's the reason why we talkabout animal-based measures
being the gold standard.
And of all of the differentexisting welfare measures that
(25:31):
are out there, there are a lotthat we use in both housed and
grazing cows, but there are alot that are designed
specifically for housed cows andthey're not so helpful in a
pasture context.
So, an example of ananimal-based measure is
something like coat cleanliness,which is often used as an
(25:51):
indicator of the actual hygieneof a house system.
But, you know, when an animal isin a pasture system, if she lies
down and it's a bit wet andmuddy, it doesn't necessarily
indicate something negative.
So some of these indicators, youknow, you can't necessarily just
apply them from one system tothe other.
(26:13):
So we've done a bit of aliterature review to look at all
the different animal-basedmeasures that are out there.
A lot of them are, as Imentioned, only really
applicable to housed cows.
But what we also found is thatthere are a lot in the nutrition
and the health space, butthere's not really much in the
environmental and the behavioralspace, which I sort of mentioned
(26:37):
earlier.
Like those are two additionalcomponents of welfare or an
animal's experience that kind ofgive us a holistic picture of
their welfare.
That it's important that we cancapture those elements, or
otherwise, we sort of only havehalf of the information we need.
So things like physical andthermal comfort reflect a cow's
(26:58):
environment.
But there are very few welfaremeasures that can actually
capture how cows areexperiencing their environment.
And to my knowledge, there'svery few that are actually
animal-based that can be easilycaptured.
You know, like we could go anduse a thermometer to get an
indication of core temperature,but that's something that we
(27:19):
could do as a point-in-timemeasure.
It would require someone trainedto come and take that measure at
a certain period of time, butit's not necessarily going to
reflect like that animal's livedexperience across the whole
season.
So a lot of these traditionalwelfare measures can often have
limitations in that they arequite uh time-intensive to
(27:41):
collect and are limited to aone-off.
So that's really where newtechnologies like wearables are
coming in and helping to fillthat gap.
So we've now got, you know,on-animal sensors like collars
and ear tag sensors that canmeasure things like lying time,
rumination time, and activity.
(28:02):
And then we've got rumen bolusesthat can measure rumen
temperature.
And so when then you capturethose animal-based measures
through sensors and you combinethat with other information like
weather data, it gives you theopportunity to have this
continuous animal-based measurethat you can also combine with
(28:22):
environmental data to really getan idea of how a cow is coping
to her environment and get anindication of her physical and
thermal comfort through, youknow, aspects like is she
spending time lying down and isshe lying down for a
considerable amount of time,which could give you an
indication that she's physicallycomfortable, and looking at
(28:43):
things like room andtemperature, you know, is it
staying within normal rangesthat we'd expect for dairy cows?
And that gives you an idea ofher thermal comfort.
So, our goal using thesetechnologies is to really build
a proof of concept of how thattechnology could allow us to
develop new animal-basedmeasures, and that will help
(29:04):
address some of those challengesof traditional measures so that
we can capture things likephysical and thermal comfort,
which we know are actually somereally key benefits of our
system.
Like most of the year, our cowsactually are physically and
thermally comfortable, andthey've got access to large
areas of pasture where we knowthey like to lie down and they
(29:28):
can sort of sprawl out, lie ontheir side and bathe in the sun.
And so that's really beneficialfor their well-being.
And that's something thatconsumers like to see.
But we also know that it's achallenge within our system
where you know we do haveperiods where cows might
experience heat stress, andwe've talked also about like
suitable lying surfaces as well.
(29:49):
So being able to kind of capturethat through technology could
allow us to both demonstrate ourbenefits of our pasture based
system, but also help us capturesome of those challenges and
then.
Feed that back to allow farmersto actually provide animals with
opportunities to mitigate thosechallenges.
So this is the kind of sciencethat really helps us to be
(30:12):
future ready if we were in asituation in the future where
our international customers askfor evidence that we provide
high standards of care, and thenwe can use this to demonstrate
that in a credible way.
SPEAKER_02 (30:25):
Thanks, Stacey.
So we've talked about howwearable technologies can give
us new real-time insights intocow welfare, but traditional
animal-based measures aren'tgoing away.
Penny, even though they havesome limitations, like being a
bit time-consuming, how canfarmers still use these
animal-based measures on farm?
SPEAKER_01 (30:46):
Yeah, so I mean they're not perfect, like
Stacy's sort of explained, butthey are really helpful and we
know farmers are using them.
So keeping an eye on bodycondition score, lameness or
signs of illness, it's going tolet you pick up your cows who
maybe need a little bit of extrahelp.
We've just recently updated ourlameness resources to
incorporate some current sciencethat's been done actually across
(31:08):
farms in the Waikatsor.
And so picking up lameness earlyand treating it with a block and
pain relief, you can get, well,the study found like
world-leading recovery rates.
So a cow goes from beingidentified and treated to back
to normal within 18 days, whichis actually like really
fantastic.
So just doing those own kind ofnormal animal health
(31:29):
preventative and identificationstuff is still really helpful.
And while we are, I guess,pushing into this future space
of positive welfare and sort ofopportunities for play and
grooming and socialinteractions, that kind of nuts
and bolts of preventing negativewelfare is still really valid.
I guess, you know, if you've gotthe flu and you feel really
miserable, you probably don'twant to go to a concert or a
(31:51):
museum and do those kind ofextra things that enhance your
quality of life because you'renot kind of in a space to go and
do those.
You're sick and miserable.
And it's still the same in theanimal welfare space.
We need to avoid negative andthen like add on top of that the
positive welfare.
So farmers are already usingthese day-to-day measures,
they're looking after theircows, they're keeping records,
(32:12):
they're working with their vet,they've probably got an animal
health plan and some policiesand procedures in place for
their staff to follow.
We're also starting to seefarmers using both the wearable
data and that more kind oftraditional sort of health
response.
So, for example, your collarmight give you a health alert
for a cow, but it might not bespecific or particularly
(32:33):
insightful, just you know, hey,you should check on this cow.
And so then farmers are puttingin place sort of, I guess, the
more traditional measures like,all right, we'll draft her out
and we will do a gait score tosee if she's lame, we'll do a
rapid mastoitis test to see ifmaybe that's the challenge, and
just sort of an overall check ofhow she's looking, her coat, her
eyes, her nose, combining thewearable data with that kind of
(32:56):
really great farmer care that weknow is already happening in the
sector.
So yeah, you can pull thattogether and just keep making
those small improvements to cowcomfort and well-being, use the
data and your observations totake the action on farm.
And yeah, you're going to have areally resilient and sustainable
farm system.
SPEAKER_02 (33:13):
It should be said that even though you said the
animal-based measures aren'tperfect, I noticed there's still
the gold standard, for example,in the heat stress research
we're doing this summer, we'restill having to do, well, not me
personally, thank goodness, um,respiration rates at very
regular intervals.
But that's just not feasible onfarm to do it, so which is why
(33:34):
we look at new technologies.
SPEAKER_01 (33:36):
Yeah, that's why we've got a summer intern
working in the animal careprogram, um, who's going to be
standing out in the sun withsunscreen and a hat, but yeah,
doing those animal observationsof respiration rate to match
with the very large data setthat we'll also get from the
Roman boluses.
SPEAKER_02 (33:53):
Well, that's a wrap for today's episode.
We've covered a lot from whatanimal welfare really means to
how New Zealand's farms stack upinternationally and how both
traditional and technology-basedmeasures can help us monitor and
improve our cow well-being.
The key takeaway is that ourpasture-based systems already
give cows space to move andgraze and live comfortably,
(34:14):
sprawl out in the sun, likeStacy said.
And yes, there are somechallenges sometimes.
DairyNZ is investing in researchto provide tools and strategies
that will help farmers addressthose challenges while keeping
cows on pasture.
That supports cow well-being andkeeps New Zealand dairy
competitive in global markets.
Now, if you want to dive deeperinto this topic, check out the
(34:36):
research story in the InsideDairy November-January 2026
edition.
You'll find it on pages 18 and19, and we'll also link to some
information in the show notes.
Thank you so much to Penny andStacy for sharing your expertise
and thanks to you for listening.
Catch you next time on TalkingDairy.
Matewa.
(35:01):
If you'd like to get connectedwith DairyNZ's latest advice,
research, tools, and resources,whether it's reading, scrolling,
listening, or in person, you canvisit dairynz.co.nz forward
slash get connected, and don'tforget to hit follow to keep up
to date with our latestepisodes.
As always, if you have anyfeedback on this podcast or have
(35:22):
some ideas for future topics orguests, please email us at
talkingdairy at dairynz.co.nz.
Thanks for listening and we'llcatch you next time on Talking
Dairy.
Kiora and welcome to Talking Dairy.
I'm your host Jack McGowan fromDairyNZ.
It's great to have you with us.
When it comes to caring for ourcows, New Zealand dairy farmers
already do a lot.
Our animals spend most of theyear outdoors where they've got
space to move and they'recomfortable in their
environment.
But as global markets andconsumers ask more questions,
(00:21):
it's becoming more important toshow the care that's already
happening on farm.
In this episode, we're talkingabout how animal care helps keep
New Zealand dairy competitiveand how new research and tools,
including wearable tech, canhelp us stay ahead of the herd.
That's where DairyNZ's EnhancedAnimal Care program comes in.
It's focused on keeping NewZealand internationally
(00:42):
competitive in animal care,grounded in science and future
ready.
More and more people want toknow not just what we produce
but how we look after ouranimals.
This programme of work isdesigned to help us do just
that.
Joining me are Penny TimmerAhrens, who leads the Enhanced
Animal Care program, and Dr.
Stacey Hendricks, a dairy and Zscientist working on cow health
(01:04):
behaviour and welfare.
Together they'll unpack theresearch, the opportunities, and
how technology, like wearables,could help farmers show the
great care already happening onfarm.
Let's get into it.
Tina Kurua, welcome back toTalking Dairy.
Both of you have been herebefore, but give us a quick
introduction about who you are.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
Kirna Jack, I'm Penny, the senior animal care
specialist at DairyNZ, and withJenny Jaygo Look After Our
Enhanced Animal Care Programme,where we're investing in tools
and resources for farmers, sothings around like mastitis and
lameness.
We're doing policy advocacy onbehalf of farmers to the
government and also investing inresearch for sort of current
risks and future opportunities.
(01:45):
Thank you.
And Stacy?
SPEAKER_00 (01:47):
My name's Stacy Hendricks, and I am a scientist,
and I'm based in the LincolnDairy and Z office, and I work
in the science teampredominantly in animal science.
So I'm quite involved in theEnhanced Animal Care program
across several pieces of work.
But predominantly the work thatI'm involved in is both
(02:07):
targeting some of the challengesthat farmers are facing in terms
of trying to reduce some of therisks within our system.
So things like heat stress,which we'll talk about a little
bit in this episode.
And I also work in sort of themore future focused space.
So that's looking atopportunities that are on the
horizon.
How can we continue to improveor continue doing the great
(02:31):
things that we're doing on farmwhen it comes to animal care?
SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
Now, Penny, there seems to be many different ways
people talk about looking afteranimals.
We hear words like welfare,well-being, stockmanship, care,
and more recently, sentience.
What do these terms actuallymean and how do they fit
together?
SPEAKER_01 (02:49):
I guess thinking about animal care, it's the care
farmers are providing.
It's that husbandry andstockmanship, those things
they're doing to make sure theircows are fed healthy and
comfortable, they've gotpreventative plans in place,
they're monitoring and they'refinding animals and treating
them.
So it's the thing farmers aredoing, and we tend to talk about
animal care at DNZ because we'rehere to support farmers to farm
(03:10):
well.
And then welfare or well-beingis sort of the outcome of that,
that care plus other factors.
And those other factors whichmake up sort of animal welfare,
we can look at there's a modelcalled the Five Domains model,
actually developed in MasseyUniversity in New Zealand, but
is now used internationally.
And those other domains thatwe're looking at are nutrition,
(03:31):
health, environment, andbehaviour.
And so if you're kind of meetinga cow's needs across those
domains, she'll be experiencingpositive welfare.
And then as science advances,we're sort of gaining a better
understanding of animalsentience.
So recognising that they havefeelings and their world and
their experience matter to them.
That's where kind of the shiftthat farmers will be hearing
(03:53):
around positive welfare andthose language of things that
matter to cows, so like comfortand pleasure and other things
like frustration.
So those kind of feelings and Iguess cow emotions.
And so that's sort of comingthrough to having a good life
for animals, not just avoidingkind of negative health impacts.
And sort of an example to tryand make that a little bit more
(04:15):
real, because that was a bit ofa word salad, is if we think
about calf shed flooring.
So there's been research done,calves raised on stone flooring
versus wood chip flooring havevery similar health and
productivity outcomes.
So in terms of disease andweight gain and growth, very
similar.
So you're meeting those kind ofbasic welfare requirements.
(04:37):
But calves reared on stones areless likely to engage in play
behavior and they're a littlebit colder.
So they can't kind of runaround.
They don't have that confidencein their footing versus calves
on wood chips, which you'll seea mob of 20 calves sort of doing
a bit of a zoomies and houringaround the shed, so they can
have access to that positivebehaviour, even though those
kind of health and productivitymetrics are much the same in
(05:00):
both of those settings.
Because I'm a bit of a policynerd and tend to think about the
Animal Welfare Act, and Stacy'sa technical expert in the animal
welfare science domain, we turnto default to animal welfare,
which maybe has a little bit ofa negative connotation, which is
where I think well-being can bea really useful framing of
talking about positive welfare.
(05:21):
But, you know, welfare andwell-being are interchangeable.
And then I guess the key ideabehind all of these terms in
language is the same, trying topull it together.
You know, animals are cared forand their experiences matter.
SPEAKER_02 (05:33):
Thanks, Penny.
Now, Stacy Penny has talkedabout how our understanding of
animal care has evolved fromthat idea of just thinking about
making sure they're not havingnegative experiences to actually
recognizing they need positiveexperiences.
Stacy, you've been looking intowhat's driving those
expectations, both here andoverseas, and you've spoken with
milk processors, industrygroups, and researchers.
(05:55):
From your perspective, why is itimportant for New Zealand
farmers to maintain their highstandard of animal care?
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
So, yeah, as you've alluded to, we've gone and
brought together perspectivesfrom different groups across the
sector, so milk processors,industry groups, and
researchers.
A bit of work that we've done inDairyNZ as part of a project to
try and understand what like thetop five factors are that are
keeping New Zealand's dairysector competitive
(06:24):
internationally, identifiedanimal care as one of those top
five factors.
So that really tells us thatanimal care and the standards
that we uphold are really partof our reputation and what we're
actually known for globally.
That's kind of one key componentof what's really allowing us to
understand where we sitinternationally.
(06:45):
But alongside that, there's alsobeen research undertaken about
consumer preferences.
So a lot of research groups haveundertaken work in this space,
but in particular, one that'sclose to home is the Ministry of
Primary Industries, does someindustry insight reporting, and
they looked at consumerpreferences and identified that
(07:07):
consumers value products thatcome from animals that are well
cared for and that are livinggood lives.
And so animal welfare is seen asa core product attribute.
And it's not just about milkquality anymore, it's about how
that milk is produced, andthat's what people are willing
to pay for.
And that's being reallyreflected and recognised by milk
(07:27):
processors.
You will have seen potentiallysome of the initiatives around
sustainability and also animalcare is being captured within
that.
So some milk processors arerolling out programs where their
farmers have access to highermilk prices.
So an example of that isFonterra's Cooperative
Difference.
And Sinlei's got a similarprogram called Lead with Pride.
(07:50):
And this is giving farmers anability to have a formalized
like plan on farm.
So animal well-being plans, forexample, that are allowing them
to then report back to theircustomers and show in a credible
way that we're providing greatpreventative care on farm.
So bringing together theseinsights from like these
(08:11):
different areas reallyreinforces to us that what is
good for animals is good for ourmarkets, and it's really
important for the long-termsustainability of our sector.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (08:22):
So now we know why animal care is important, and
our ambition, of course, is tostay internationally
competitive.
Penny, how do we actually knowwhere New Zealand sits compared
with other dairy systems aroundthe world?
SPEAKER_01 (08:35):
So we've developed a global framework for classifying
cow well-being on dairy farmsusing eight characteristics that
sort of contribute to cowwell-being.
Another framework farmers willalready be familiar with is our
farm production framework.
So that classifies whetheryou're sort of a system one to
five based on your feedresources.
This is sort of a similarapproach, but trying to
(08:56):
understand the characteristicsthat influence cow well-being.
And then we can make comparisonsacross sort of New Zealand, the
US, Ireland, and China.
We can kind of look at differentdairy systems across those
characteristics to get a bit ofan understanding of where we sit
and depending on where kind ofthe future goes and what
consumers value, what we're kindof prepared to capitalise on and
(09:17):
really take advantage of.
There's a story in the Novemberissue of Inside Dairy around the
typology work, which has adiagram, which I think makes it
a little bit easier tounderstand.
But just picking one of thosecharacteristics is we looked at
milking frequency.
And so cows could be milked oncea day, twice a day, some sort of
variation of flexible milking,three to three times a day,
(09:39):
which is does happen in thosesort of really large US dairy
farms.
And the amount of time a cowspends at milking impacts the
amount of time she has to spendbeing a cow.
So if you're milking three timesa day, she's probably spending a
lot of time being milked orgrazing or, you know, eating a
lot of food to keep up with thatmilk production versus a farmer
(10:01):
who's maybe once a day or moreof a sort of flexible milking
strategy.
She's got more time to be a cow.
She won't be as highly driven toeat.
I mean, she might spend moretime lying down, ruminating, um,
having social interactions,doing sort of things that are
important to cows.
And I guess using this globaltypology, it also identified
(10:22):
that every system has sometrade-offs.
So those highly managed or housesystems can protect cows from
heat and cold.
I mean, they're indoors, they'vegot shelter all the time, but it
might restrict some of theirmovement or natural behaviours,
um, like LBL to sort of lie flatout on their sides.
Whereas pasture-based systemsare really good for allowing
(10:42):
that freedom of movement andgrazing and exploration.
I mean, we've seen cows out inthe paddock having a scratch on
a post, but it does expose cowsto environmental stresses, so
really hot weather or prolongedum wet and cold weather.
And I guess regardless of whatsystem you're in and what
potential restrictions areplaced on cows, that good
management and pharma care isalways going to be really key to
(11:04):
achieving good welfare, kind ofregardless of what your
infrastructural resources are.
So against the a backdrop ofchanging consumer expectations,
as Stacy spoke about it, peopleare interested in how their milk
is produced and how those cowsare looked after.
We're really well positioned totake advantage of that customer
demand for like kind ofnaturally produced milk.
(11:26):
People like that our cows areraised outdoors.
So that's kind of at thatinternational comparison level.
But then to try and betterunderstand the challenges and
opportunities at a farm level,we created a different tool
again, which Stacy can talkabout.
SPEAKER_02 (11:40):
Okay, Stacy, let's do that.
We've talked about how NewZealand farms compare
internationally based on systemlevel characteristics, but what
about at the farm level forpasture-based dairy farms?
What are the things on aday-to-day basis that influence
how cows actually experiencetheir lives?
SPEAKER_00 (11:58):
What Penny had talked about was really about
comparing our farm systemsinternationally at kind of a
higher level, but obviously wehave to recognise that not every
farm system in New Zealand isexactly the same.
And they'll have differences interms of how they're resourced,
the climate that they're within,and how they manage their
(12:20):
system, which will influence howa cow experiences her like
day-to-day.
So effectively, the purpose ofthe work that I'm going to talk
about is that we wanted toreally try and characterize
across a subset of New Zealandfarms, like what does our
average farm system look like?
And how does it maybe differacross farm systems?
(12:42):
And so we wanted to capturewhere are the opportunities to
enhance cow well-being in termsof what are some of the
opportunities that farms canalready provide or are already
providing, and maybe there'ssome farmers that are already
ahead of the curve, and can weuse some of that information to
guide other farmers to get tothe same sort of place, or also
(13:03):
highlighting where there arerisks within our systems, and
obviously that's going to bedependent on the individual
farm.
But if we could capture risksthat like are consistently
happening across the board wherethere are a large number of
farmers that are maybeexperiencing challenges within
certain areas, that would giveus a little bit of an indication
in terms of where we might needto focus our attention to ensure
(13:26):
that we then can really maintainthat international
competitiveness when you take itsort of upper level, but also to
help on the ground like improveanimal care and support farmers
with the right tools andresources that they need to
actually address some of thesechallenges.
So, actually, to start off with,to try and actually characterize
this and understand where thoseopportunities and risks are, we
(13:48):
had to go out and firstlydevelop a bespoke tool
effectively.
So we designed what we've calledthe Cow Quality of Life
Assessment Tool, and that's beendesigned specifically for New
Zealand's pasture-based systems.
And the reason we did that isbecause while there's been
similar work done in housesystems, we couldn't just take
that same tool from a housesystem and put it into a pasture
(14:13):
context because we had toacknowledge that, you know,
there are differences betweenour systems, with one key
difference being the seasonalnature of our systems, where we
are carving in seasonallyconcentrated time frames, and
then you add on a layer of cowsbeing outside, and you've got to
contend with the weather.
And so that adds somecomplexities into the farm
(14:35):
systems that we're managing.
So we started off by developingthe assessment tool based on the
five domains framework, whichPenny talked about earlier.
So this is really to capture aholistic picture of a cow's
lived experience.
So the four key functionaldomains are nutrition,
(14:56):
environment, health, andbehaviour.
And basically, the five domainsmodel really reflects that
within each of those areas, theyall have can have a different
effect on an animal's livedexperience.
We based our framework on thosefour key areas.
And then we also had a farmerworkshop while we were
(15:17):
developing this tool.
And during that sort ofpreliminary phase of
development, we got some pharmafeedback that they felt one area
that was really missing was thepeople area, and that was to
recognise that staff experienceand staffing levels across the
season can really impact ourability to provide certain
levels of animal care.
(15:37):
So we went and um tweaked ouroriginal pilot tool and we added
in that fifth area, and then wewent over to more than 200 farms
and we sat down at the kitchentable with a range of farmers
and questioned them with aquestionnaire about their care
practices across the season.
(15:58):
So the actual tool we developedcaptured 21 different areas of
the farm system, and then usingthe questionnaire, we asked them
different questions about thedifferent challenges and
opportunities that they hadthroughout the year, and we then
scored each area a low,moderate, or high risk.
So the purpose of doing that wasto really capture periods of the
(16:21):
year like recognizing thatseasonal influence where, for
example, staffing levels,perhaps it's more of a low risk
that you don't have adequatestaffing levels to meet your
animal care needs during theautumn period, for example.
But come springtime when you'vegot all your cows carving within
(16:42):
sort of a 12-week window, you'vesort of maybe got additional
pressures on your farm system,and that might impact your
ability to actually provide thelevel of care you need, also
given that you know it's a timewhere you've got higher rates of
transition cow diseases andthings like that.
So that was really great to seethat we were able to kind of
(17:03):
capture those unique differenceswithin our system.
But in terms of the resultsoverall, we were able to
highlight that 85% of thoseareas were low risk across all
seasons that we captured.
So some examples of those werethat we're we tend to see that
we seem to be feeding our cowswell, we're providing them with
(17:24):
high quality feed throughout theyear.
We're very proactive in terms ofdealing with health issues.
We're providing adequate spacefor animals to graze freely, and
we're allowing them withopportunities for social contact
with their herdmates.
We did, however, identify a fewpotential areas for improvement.
(17:46):
And these are relatively wellknown, I think.
So seasonal challenges thatfarmers are probably well aware
of.
So issues around staffing, as Isort of alluded to in the
springtime, for example,potential challenges around
providing adequate lyingsurfaces that are dry and
comfortable throughout theseason.
So, particularly for those farmsthat are maybe in quite cold and
(18:10):
wet areas or they're winteringon crops.
And then another key area weidentified was heat stress risk.
And so this is obviously reallyrestricted to summer and
potentially maybe a bit ofautumn, depending on what region
you're in.
But really, these highlightedareas that both farmers and
dairy and Z are already workingto improve, but it gives us the
(18:33):
opportunity to focus on where wecan put future research
resources so that we can improvethese areas further and provide
farmers with the tools that theyneed to address these
challenges.
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
Penny, Stacy has highlighted some of the
challenges inherent to thepasture-based system in New
Zealand.
So heat stress, lying surfaces,and staffing levels.
Can you give us an example ofhow farmers can kind of tackle
those areas?
SPEAKER_01 (19:01):
Yep, because their system level risks, they're not
easy to solve.
I think if we could control theweather, that would be a really
simple solution.
Um, unfortunately, uhunrealistic.
So, yeah, obviously they'reconnected to lots of parts of
the farm system and there isn'ta quick fix.
So I guess taking uh comfortablelying in winter, um, Southland
(19:21):
and Otago farmers in particularhave done a lot of work on this
over the last sort of six toseven years.
But it wasn't simple.
It wasn't just, oh, we'llreplace this crop with grass.
That has impacts on feedavailability through winter.
It's going to impact how muchbalads you need to cut through
the rest of the year to be ableto feed your cows.
Do you need to change the bodycondition score that you dry off
(19:42):
at because you're not going tobe able to put on as much?
What's your soil structure?
What's your land type?
What can you grow?
What can't you grow?
It's not simple.
And so farmers have made reallygreat progress, but it's taken
time and it's taken, I guess,iterating their systems over
years.
And we do actually have someinformation on that.
We've surveyed farmers and weknow they're doing some really
(20:03):
good stuff around managing theircritical source areas,
backfencing, portable watertroughs, having plans in place
for their staff to shift thecows, you know, when the soil
gets to a particular condition.
So they've done a lot of work inthat space already.
But yeah, just belying the pointthat it wasn't easy.
And then heat stress is probablythe next one where we know with
(20:24):
climate change modelling thatit's going to become more of a
challenge.
It's it already is, but it'sincreasingly going to become
something farmers need tograpple with.
I think there's something like67 heat stress days a year in
the Waikastor.
So part of the Enhanced AnimalCare Programme is a project
called Comfortable CowsOutdoors, led by Dr.
Charlotte Reed, and that islooking at doing the research to
(20:46):
understand what mitigations workand how farmers can practically
apply them.
Keeping our cows outdoors isgreat.
It's a real competitiveadvantage, as we've sort of
already discussed.
But yeah, then managing the heatload in summer can be quite
challenging.
So in the Comfortable CowsOutdoors project, we're going to
be doing a trial this summercomparing shade with sprinklers
(21:08):
with altered milking times tosee how do those mitigation
strategies stack up.
I guess the gold standard forheat stress is shade, it cuts
the solar radiation.
But it's not really practical totell farmers to plant shade on
every square hectare of theirfarm.
That would be a kiwi fruitorchard, which, yeah, really
shady, but not conducive tomilking cows.
(21:30):
And also there's differentregional differences.
So, based on some previousmodelling that we've done, we
think the Y cartou, BayerPlenty, and Canterbury are most
likely to have more heat stressdays.
Canterbury, with its large farmsand center pivot irrigation,
will need different solutions toY Cartour.
So solving the sun, or I guessimpacts of heat stress on cows,
(21:50):
is going to take different toolsand different ways of
integrating them into the farmsystems.
SPEAKER_02 (21:56):
The comfortable cows outdoors trial that you're
talking about, Penny, that'ssomething that farmers have been
asking for.
You know, more information aboutwhat mitigation options are the
best ones to use in theircontext.
So that's really cool to seethat coming to fruition this
summer.
I'm very excited to see theoutcomes of it.
Okay, so we know New Zealandfarms are already doing really
(22:18):
well in lots of areas, and ouroutdoor systems give cows space
to move and graze and becomfortable.
But traditional welfare measuresdon't always make it easy to
prove that.
Stacy, can you talk us throughhow we assess welfare and how
the science we're doing now ishelping us to be future ready?
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
Yeah, so I'll talk first a little bit about how we
traditionally have measuredwelfare.
So you may or may not have comeacross the term animal-based
measure, and two other keymeasures to measure welfare are
resource and management-basedmeasures.
So animal-based measures areseen as the gold standard.
(22:59):
Resource and management-basedmeasures are still helpful, but
effectively they don'tnecessarily tell us how that
animal is experiencing herenvironment.
So an animal-based measure canreally tell us about something
that's already happened or ishappening to an animal, whereas
a resource and amanagement-based measure,
they're both kind ofsituational.
(23:20):
So it's more about what thatanimal has access to, but it
doesn't necessarily mean thatshe's going to access that
resource.
So if I give you an easyexample, an animal-based measure
that we already use on farmquite commonly is body condition
score.
So we go out and we assess thebody condition of our animals,
(23:41):
and that can usually tell us if,for example, the body condition
score is a little bit lower thanwe'd expect.
That might indicate that thatanimal is sick, or that, you
know, she's just immediatelypost-carving and she's lost
quite a bit of body conditionscore and she's mobilized a lot
of body condition to support hermilk production.
So they don't necessarilyinherently tell us if it's a
(24:05):
like a normal outcome or if it'sa negative one.
In the case that if she's sick,you know, you might need to do
something about that.
But in the case of her being alittle bit light post-carving,
you know, just ensuring thatshe's got adequate uh
high-quality feed is what you'dsort of do to support that.
But ultimately, it does stilltell you how that animal is
(24:27):
being impacted at the time.
Whereas in the case of aresource-based measure, so that
could be, you know, how muchfeed is available to an animal,
or that she has actually got arange of different options
available to her in terms ofdifferent feed types.
So that can still be anindicator of welfare and that,
(24:48):
you know, generally high qualityfeed availability is a good
welfare indicator in terms ofthat she's likely to be able to
meet her nutritional needs.
But if she's a sick animal andshe's feeling a little bit under
the weather and isn't able toeat that food or isn't able to
access that food because she'shaving trouble, you know,
(25:09):
getting up and moving around andgrazing or has low energy
levels, then of course, likethat's only going to tell you so
much.
And that's where thatanimal-based measure really will
tell you the full story, really.
So that's the reason why we talkabout animal-based measures
being the gold standard.
And of all of the differentexisting welfare measures that
(25:31):
are out there, there are a lotthat we use in both housed and
grazing cows, but there are alot that are designed
specifically for housed cows andthey're not so helpful in a
pasture context.
So, an example of ananimal-based measure is
something like coat cleanliness,which is often used as an
(25:51):
indicator of the actual hygieneof a house system.
But, you know, when an animal isin a pasture system, if she lies
down and it's a bit wet andmuddy, it doesn't necessarily
indicate something negative.
So some of these indicators, youknow, you can't necessarily just
apply them from one system tothe other.
(26:13):
So we've done a bit of aliterature review to look at all
the different animal-basedmeasures that are out there.
A lot of them are, as Imentioned, only really
applicable to housed cows.
But what we also found is thatthere are a lot in the nutrition
and the health space, butthere's not really much in the
environmental and the behavioralspace, which I sort of mentioned
(26:37):
earlier.
Like those are two additionalcomponents of welfare or an
animal's experience that kind ofgive us a holistic picture of
their welfare.
That it's important that we cancapture those elements, or
otherwise, we sort of only havehalf of the information we need.
So things like physical andthermal comfort reflect a cow's
(26:58):
environment.
But there are very few welfaremeasures that can actually
capture how cows areexperiencing their environment.
And to my knowledge, there'svery few that are actually
animal-based that can be easilycaptured.
You know, like we could go anduse a thermometer to get an
indication of core temperature,but that's something that we
(27:19):
could do as a point-in-timemeasure.
It would require someone trainedto come and take that measure at
a certain period of time, butit's not necessarily going to
reflect like that animal's livedexperience across the whole
season.
So a lot of these traditionalwelfare measures can often have
limitations in that they arequite uh time-intensive to
(27:41):
collect and are limited to aone-off.
So that's really where newtechnologies like wearables are
coming in and helping to fillthat gap.
So we've now got, you know,on-animal sensors like collars
and ear tag sensors that canmeasure things like lying time,
rumination time, and activity.
(28:02):
And then we've got rumen bolusesthat can measure rumen
temperature.
And so when then you capturethose animal-based measures
through sensors and you combinethat with other information like
weather data, it gives you theopportunity to have this
continuous animal-based measurethat you can also combine with
(28:22):
environmental data to really getan idea of how a cow is coping
to her environment and get anindication of her physical and
thermal comfort through, youknow, aspects like is she
spending time lying down and isshe lying down for a
considerable amount of time,which could give you an
indication that she's physicallycomfortable, and looking at
(28:43):
things like room andtemperature, you know, is it
staying within normal rangesthat we'd expect for dairy cows?
And that gives you an idea ofher thermal comfort.
So, our goal using thesetechnologies is to really build
a proof of concept of how thattechnology could allow us to
develop new animal-basedmeasures, and that will help
(29:04):
address some of those challengesof traditional measures so that
we can capture things likephysical and thermal comfort,
which we know are actually somereally key benefits of our
system.
Like most of the year, our cowsactually are physically and
thermally comfortable, andthey've got access to large
areas of pasture where we knowthey like to lie down and they
(29:28):
can sort of sprawl out, lie ontheir side and bathe in the sun.
And so that's really beneficialfor their well-being.
And that's something thatconsumers like to see.
But we also know that it's achallenge within our system
where you know we do haveperiods where cows might
experience heat stress, andwe've talked also about like
suitable lying surfaces as well.
(29:49):
So being able to kind of capturethat through technology could
allow us to both demonstrate ourbenefits of our pasture based
system, but also help us capturesome of those challenges and
then.
Feed that back to allow farmersto actually provide animals with
opportunities to mitigate thosechallenges.
So this is the kind of sciencethat really helps us to be
(30:12):
future ready if we were in asituation in the future where
our international customers askfor evidence that we provide
high standards of care, and thenwe can use this to demonstrate
that in a credible way.
SPEAKER_02 (30:25):
Thanks, Stacey.
So we've talked about howwearable technologies can give
us new real-time insights intocow welfare, but traditional
animal-based measures aren'tgoing away.
Penny, even though they havesome limitations, like being a
bit time-consuming, how canfarmers still use these
animal-based measures on farm?
SPEAKER_01 (30:46):
Yeah, so I mean they're not perfect, like
Stacy's sort of explained, butthey are really helpful and we
know farmers are using them.
So keeping an eye on bodycondition score, lameness or
signs of illness, it's going tolet you pick up your cows who
maybe need a little bit of extrahelp.
We've just recently updated ourlameness resources to
incorporate some current sciencethat's been done actually across
(31:08):
farms in the Waikatsor.
And so picking up lameness earlyand treating it with a block and
pain relief, you can get, well,the study found like
world-leading recovery rates.
So a cow goes from beingidentified and treated to back
to normal within 18 days, whichis actually like really
fantastic.
So just doing those own kind ofnormal animal health
(31:29):
preventative and identificationstuff is still really helpful.
And while we are, I guess,pushing into this future space
of positive welfare and sort ofopportunities for play and
grooming and socialinteractions, that kind of nuts
and bolts of preventing negativewelfare is still really valid.
I guess, you know, if you've gotthe flu and you feel really
miserable, you probably don'twant to go to a concert or a
(31:51):
museum and do those kind ofextra things that enhance your
quality of life because you'renot kind of in a space to go and
do those.
You're sick and miserable.
And it's still the same in theanimal welfare space.
We need to avoid negative andthen like add on top of that the
positive welfare.
So farmers are already usingthese day-to-day measures,
they're looking after theircows, they're keeping records,
(32:12):
they're working with their vet,they've probably got an animal
health plan and some policiesand procedures in place for
their staff to follow.
We're also starting to seefarmers using both the wearable
data and that more kind oftraditional sort of health
response.
So, for example, your collarmight give you a health alert
for a cow, but it might not bespecific or particularly
(32:33):
insightful, just you know, hey,you should check on this cow.
And so then farmers are puttingin place sort of, I guess, the
more traditional measures like,all right, we'll draft her out
and we will do a gait score tosee if she's lame, we'll do a
rapid mastoitis test to see ifmaybe that's the challenge, and
just sort of an overall check ofhow she's looking, her coat, her
eyes, her nose, combining thewearable data with that kind of
(32:56):
really great farmer care that weknow is already happening in the
sector.
So yeah, you can pull thattogether and just keep making
those small improvements to cowcomfort and well-being, use the
data and your observations totake the action on farm.
And yeah, you're going to have areally resilient and sustainable
farm system.
SPEAKER_02 (33:13):
It should be said that even though you said the
animal-based measures aren'tperfect, I noticed there's still
the gold standard, for example,in the heat stress research
we're doing this summer, we'restill having to do, well, not me
personally, thank goodness, um,respiration rates at very
regular intervals.
But that's just not feasible onfarm to do it, so which is why
(33:34):
we look at new technologies.
SPEAKER_01 (33:36):
Yeah, that's why we've got a summer intern
working in the animal careprogram, um, who's going to be
standing out in the sun withsunscreen and a hat, but yeah,
doing those animal observationsof respiration rate to match
with the very large data setthat we'll also get from the
Roman boluses.
SPEAKER_02 (33:53):
Well, that's a wrap for today's episode.
We've covered a lot from whatanimal welfare really means to
how New Zealand's farms stack upinternationally and how both
traditional and technology-basedmeasures can help us monitor and
improve our cow well-being.
The key takeaway is that ourpasture-based systems already
give cows space to move andgraze and live comfortably,
(34:14):
sprawl out in the sun, likeStacy said.
And yes, there are somechallenges sometimes.
DairyNZ is investing in researchto provide tools and strategies
that will help farmers addressthose challenges while keeping
cows on pasture.
That supports cow well-being andkeeps New Zealand dairy
competitive in global markets.
Now, if you want to dive deeperinto this topic, check out the
(34:36):
research story in the InsideDairy November-January 2026
edition.
You'll find it on pages 18 and19, and we'll also link to some
information in the show notes.
Thank you so much to Penny andStacy for sharing your expertise
and thanks to you for listening.
Catch you next time on TalkingDairy.
Matewa.
(35:01):
If you'd like to get connectedwith DairyNZ's latest advice,
research, tools, and resources,whether it's reading, scrolling,
listening, or in person, you canvisit dairynz.co.nz forward
slash get connected, and don'tforget to hit follow to keep up
to date with our latestepisodes.
As always, if you have anyfeedback on this podcast or have
(35:22):
some ideas for future topics orguests, please email us at
talkingdairy at dairynz.co.nz.
Thanks for listening and we'llcatch you next time on Talking
Dairy.
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