Photo of a woman (Birgitta Staaf Larsson, SLU) standing indoors in a barn with dairy cows.
Photo: Lisa Chröisty, SLU

Animal welfare controls - but how? Progress towards better welfare for Swedish dairy cows

News published:  01/08/2025

To ensure the welfare of dairy cows in Sweden there is legislation and controls on dairy farms. But are today's animal welfare controls really optimally designed to understand and monitor the physical and mental well-being of cows? These are questions asked by research - that have now been answered.

There are almost 300 000 dairy cows in Sweden. Since 2009, the County Administrative Board has been responsible for animal welfare inspections of these farm animals. The task of the County Administrative Boards is to check compliance with legislation and thus ensure good animal husbandry.

But of course, how well the control reflects animal welfare depends on what is being measured.

Today's inspections: Welfare from a man's or a cow's point of view?

Today, the animal welfare inspections concern, for example, the animals' housing facilities, cleaning practices, body condition and cleanliness. But how specific are these measures? And what is the most important for animal welfare?

Let's take it from the top.

Photo taken from above of dairy cows indoors in a loose housing.
Dairy cows in a Swedish loose housing facility. Photo: Lisa Chröisty, SLU

  1. Official control: carried out by the County Administrative Board.Questionnaires are used that are ticked off like a checklist: “yes”, ‘no’, “not applicable” or “not checked”. Each individual animal is covered. The inspection takes about 1-2 hours.

  2. The voluntary inspection ‘Cow Control’ by Växa: where the assessment is carried out by thoroughly assessing 35 cows, youngstock and calves respectively. This is a more time-consuming way of assessing animal welfare and takes about 3-4 hours to complete. Today, 73% of the dairy farms in Sweden have chosen to be part of this voluntary control, which also offers advice.

  3. The protocol“Welfare Quality”: is mainly used in research. This protocol assesses in more detail, including behavioral parameters. A very time-consuming way to assess animal welfare, not least when it comes to behaviors such as “how relaxed are the animals” where assessments require observation over a period of time. In Welfare Quality, 30-73 animals are assessed depending on herd size and it takes about 6-8 hours.

The Swedish Board of Agriculture's checklist is used to assess whether a farm meets the statutory requirements during animal welfare inspections. But there are also other protocols used to check animal protection and welfare. The protocol used depends on who is carrying out the inspection.

Those who inspect dairy cows and farms for the government may be called animal welfare officers, animal welfare controllers or animal welfare inspectors, depending on which County Administrative Board in Sweden they work for. But the role is the same, and the Swedish Board of Agriculture checklists are used at every inspection.

Who assesses matters

Yes, it actually does.

To find out whether this statement is true, the research project investigated how different professional categories assess the body condition and cleanliness of cattle. With the aim to find out if and how profession, education and experience influence assessments.

It turned out that students are stricter than both veterinarians and animal welfare officers, says PhD student Birgitta Staaf Larsson and continues: This is probably because you can become a bit ‘numb’, or at least used to what you see when you have spent many years in a certain environment, as many of the veterinarians and animal welfare officers have done.

However, the results of an animal welfare inspection also depend on the protocol:

Concerning the County Administrative Boards' animal welfare inspections, there is currently a checklist that is answered with “fulfilled”/“not fulfilled”, where questions about the cows' behavior are currently not being asked - and therefore not answered. An assessment subject that is now considered to be increasingly important to get an overall picture of how well the cows actually feel and are doing, the doctoral student continues.

Using such a “black and white” system proves to have its limitations. For some measures, for example if the space for the cows is large enough, it is easy to categorize it as fulfilled or not fulfilled, but for other measures this is not always the case:

When it comes to questions about the animals' cleanliness or body condition, it may therefore be a good idea in the future to make it possible to answer the questions in more detail with the amount of animals that are dirty, for example, and also whether they are mildly or severely dirty, says Birgitta Staaf Larsson.

Request from the European Commission

The use of more animal-based parameters in official animal welfare controls has been requested from the European Commission. Thus, the need to review and develop animal welfare protocols has become increasingly important.

However, what are animal-based parameters, and how do we ensure that animal welfare controls take this into account in the future?

– In simple terms, it can be explained that the protocols today are based very much on aspects of the animals' environment rather than signals from the animals," says Birgitta Staaf Larsson and continues:

– So, through the work on this project, we have investigated how we can evaluate the animals and thereby judge whether they are doing well or not.

  • The European Commission has overall responsibility for animal welfare in the EU and ensures that Member States comply with common rules. They carry out checks to ensure compliance with animal welfare legislation, but it is the responsibility of the Member States to carry out the actual checks.
  • In Sweden, the Swedish Board of Agriculture has overall responsibility for animal welfare in Sweden and coordinates and guides the work of the county administrative boards.
  • EU animal welfare rules reflect the so-called five freedoms: freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury and disease, freedom to perform natural behaviors, and freedom from fear and distress.
  • To ensure that animal welfare inspections measure these important aspects, more animal-based parameters have been requested to be used in protocols. This is part of why this research project was undertaken.

The dairy farms must also comply with the Swedish legislation (L104 -  the Swedish Board of Agriculture’s regulations and advice for cattle), as well as the Animal Welfare Act and the Animal Welfare Ordinance.

 

Photo of a dairy cow lying down indoors in a barn with loose housing.
One animal-based parameter that can be used is to note if cows are lying down. It is a good rating if many of the animals feel comfortable and safe to do so. Photo: Lisa Chröisty, SLU

Then we also realized that we need to find smarter ways to assess some of the criteria, such as thermal comfort of the cows (that they don't freeze or get too hot) and whether each cow has had the opportunity to drink enough water. We have been lacking easy and practical methods to do that," continues the PhD student.

The issue of water is one that is becoming increasingly important; partly because more dairy cows are kept in loose housing rather than tied up. Loose housing systems may create social hierarchies where some animals are not allowed to drink, and partly because in the future we may have to manage water as a resource even more.

"For animals that produce milk, water is usually referred to as the ‘most important feed resource’, because if an animal does not drink enough, its appetite also decreases, which means that it reduces its feed intake and, in the long run, reduces milk production," says PhD student Birgitta Staaf Larsson.

Therefore, the research team has also conducted various tests using equipment such as thermometers, thermal imaging cameras and milk samples to find the best way to measure both temperature and water content of each individual cow. A challenge, but one that has led to progress.

The future: towards better farm animal care and even smarter robots

After many years of work, the project is now coming to an end, and for those who are curious, there are several scientifically published articles to read.

“In general, we have very good animal husbandry in Sweden, compared to other countries, but of course, it can always be improved,” says Birgitta Staaf Larsson.

This may be possible in the future through changes in the animal welfare controls, where this research project is now proposing several practical and animal-friendly suggestions. But also through technological developments:

Milking robots already measure several aspects today, such as milk quantity, color, temperature and cell count when milking each individual cow. The body condition is also automatically measured at some facilities. “In the future, it would be a great development if the robot could identify animals that have had too little water,” she concludes.
Photo of a woman (Birgitta Staaf Larsson) squatting indoors with a dairy cow sniffing at her.
“I have worked a lot with the animals, which I love, but also with analyzing samples and data to understand the tests we have conducted and hopefully be able to find the best solutions for the cows,” says Birgitta Staaf Larsson. Photo: Lisa Chröisty, SLU

Facts:

Explanation of terms:

PhD student = A research student who is trained and involved in a research project for four years. After passing the examination, the person is awarded the title of doctor in the subject, which is the highest academic degree in Sweden.

About the project:

  • The PhD position is funded by Svenska Djurskyddsföreningen and has been ongoing part time during the period 2014-2025.
  • Doctoral student in the project is Birgitta Staaf Larsson, together with a research team consisting of:
    • Main supervisor for the project 2022-2025 Anna Jansson, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU.
    • Main supervisor for the project 2014-2011 Margareta Stéen, Associate Professor of Wild Animal Health at SLU.
    • Kristina Dahlborn, assistant supervisor and professor emerita of integrative physiology at SLU.
    • and Jan Hultgren, assistant supervisor 2014-2021 and associate professor of animal science at SLU.

The elements of the project can be broadly described as:

  1. To compare three different protocols (official controls with two others) on 41 dairy farms around Sweden to see how the farms are evaluated by the different protocols.
  2. To study how different categories of professions assess body condition and dirty cattle. A survey in which 569 people participated, all with some connection to the assessment of animals but with different professions and levels of experience.
  3. To find ways to measure the two concepts of thermal comfort (comfortable body temperature) and hydration status in dairy cows.  

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