These are the cows that are waiting to give birth. They are called the dry cows, and they're in the later stage of the dry period. These cows are kept on straw for maximum lying comfort. One issue for dairy cows at the last stage of pregnancy is they're often mixed into new groups. As we've already seen, calves are hierarchical and aggressive behavior can happen in groups of unfamiliar calves. When farms like this one have calving all year around, mixing is very difficult to avoid. One thing to assure aggression is kept to a minimum, is to have enough space for subordinate calves to keep out of the way of dominant calves. Also, it's important that all animals have enough food to feed at the feed face. Maternity shed hygiene is vital to reduce the chance of later infections of the uterus and disease problems for the newborn calf. On this farm, cows give birth to their calves in this group shed. On other farms, cows are moved to dedicated pens. Recent research has shown that cows are motivated to be able to hide away from the other cows, and also people when they give birth. So, solid sided individual pens, or group pens with separate sections, might be the best to reduce cow stress at birth. When calves are born, the cow and calf stay together for up to 12 hours after birth. After checking the cow, she's put into the main milking herd. This is a stressful period for the cow, as she's taken away from her calf and put into a new group of other cows. When we think of good animal welfare, we would often wish to allow normal or natural behavior be expressed as much as possible. The fact that dairy cows and calves are not able to perform more than a few hours of the natural maternal behavior is considered by some people to be very severe insult to welfare. Of course, cows need to have a calf to start producing milk and in modern system it is a lot easier if the calf does not drink milk from the mother cow but is removed to a separate shed. In many dairy farms in the world, calves are kept with their mothers for far longer, and in fact, many breeds of calves it is difficult to get the cow to give milk unless the calf is present. With the high yields but small financial margins of farmers that in Europe and North America, it is unlikely that the practice of calf removal will be changed. Therefore we need to know what is best for cow and calf welfare if we're going to remove the calf. When should we remove the calf to maximize welfare for both mother and calf? Behavioural and physiological research has shown that although calf health is maximized if the calf stays with the cow for longer. The stress shown by both mother and calf at separation, is much higher the separation at birth. So very many feel that early separation is too early, it is actually better for both animals then to separate later when the cow-calf bond is more strongly formed. Let's go and see how the calves are kept once they're removed from their mothers. Calves are moved to these calf hutches a few hours after birth. Calves spend between one week and ten days inside these individual pens. Here, they receive colostrum to boost their immune system and then move on to milk. They're fed milk with buckets with teats. And they've always got constant contact next to their neighbors. So here we are in the group penning system that we have here at the research center for our dairy cows. These are our igloos. These calfs will be in these groups from about one week to ten days after birth, and they're all roughly the same age group. And they stay in this age group until they've weaned. So there's bulls in here as well as the heifer calves, so the boys as well as the girls, and they'll stay as say all together until they've weaned. So they've got a nice social group to play in. The pens have comfortable bedding as you can see. And the igloos provide shelter from the cold and the wind. But the outside area allows for lots of fresh air, which reduces diseases. The calves have access to a computerized milk feeder, not that you'd know it from this one sucking my hand. And each of these cows has a collar attached to its neck, that has an individual ID, which allows them to get the right amount of milk from the computerized milk feeder. So the computer feeder then knows if they've had too much. However, because they're on a computer feeder that allows them to go and suckle whenever they want to, even if they don't receive a milk meal. The calves are also fed and watered here in this pen. And as I said, they stay here about weaning, which is around about eight weeks of age. The female calves you can see here become replacements for the main herd. The male calves in this pen will be sold off after weaning from milk and bought to be reared for beef. In many areas, male calves are reared for veal. When the price of beef is very low, male calves of Holstein or Holstein Friesian breeds are not worth very much money, and they can be shot at or shortly after birth. No farmer wants to shoot a healthy animal, so the current situation, and the higher growth of higher welfare Roseville in the UK, is much better from the farmers point of view. >> The three most important welfare challenges facing dairy farmers are to reduce lameness, lameness is a serious disease with dairy cows. And there's too many cows with lameness. And that also causes not only pain to the cattle, but also reduced production from cows. The second one would be to improve our buildings. We don't necessarily need very modern buildings, but we do need buildings that are suitable for the type and size of cows that we have at the moment. The third challenge is to have well trained staff who can identify any problems just as they're starting, and then treat the cows and reduce the welfare impact of any problems that may occur. >> Well that was quick trip around our farm in Dumfries. I hope it's given you a greater understanding of the welfare challenges that cows and calves may face on the farm, and also an understanding of how we actually farm dairy cows. I've enjoyed taking you around the farm and I hope that you've enjoyed it too. There's tons more that we could have got into that we haven't. So, if you want to go into this subject more deeply go and have a look at the further reading resources in your courser page.
