ABSTRACT
Cattle are commonly farmed throughout the world in a variety of systems, mainly to produce meat and milk, but also kept as draught animals. The strong demand for their products has led to a transition from small family-based enterprises to large corporations, with thousands of animals on each farm. As genetic potential for high milk and meat yields has increased, so too has the animals’ susceptibility to disease, especially nutritional disorders stemming from the necessarily high concentration of nutrients in their diet. Modern units usually keep cattle in pens in barns or feedlots, rather than at pasture, for ease of management, which gives them little opportunity for natural behaviour and renders them susceptible to lameness and communicable diseases. Routine dehorning, castration, and other mutilations are all necessary but painful procedures to allow cattle to be safely kept in these situations. High producing cattle are also at significant risk of heat stress, particularly during transport, and this is expected to increase with global temperature increases this century. The development of separate dairy and beef industries has left male dairy calves without a valuable purpose, and their killing en masse continues to raise ethical concerns. To survive competition from plant-based products, cattle farmers must improve their animals’ welfare rapidly.
