Simple SummaryIt is often presumed that grazing dairy cows experience better welfare than those that are housed all year round. But is this really the case? In this study, we wanted to find out whether the daily amount of time cows spent on pasture affected their welfare. We used the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol for dairy cattle to measure cow welfare on 32 farms (organic and conventional) once in winter (=housing period) and once in summer (=grazing period, if provided). Farms were grouped according to daily grazing time (‘minor/zero’, ‘medium’, and ‘high’). In farms with grazing, overall welfare improved from winter to summer, whereas the situation in minor/zero grazing farms remained largely unchanged. While we found no overall effect of the amount of daily grazing time on cow welfare, the individual measures “% of cows with hairless patches” and “% of lame cows” received better scores in the high grazing farms. However, other measures e.g., related to water provision, scored worse in the grazing farms in summer as opposed to winter. We conclude that grazing offers a high potential to enhance dairy cow welfare during summer. However, beneficial effects are not guaranteed when the overall management does not satisfy the cows´ needs.AbstractGrazing provides livestock better opportunities to act out their species-specific behavior compared to restrictive stable conditions. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of daily grazing time on welfare of dairy cows in organic and conventional farms based on the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol for dairy cattle (WQ®). Therefore, we applied the WQ® on 32 dairy farms (classified in 3 groups: Group 0, minor/zero grazing, n = 14; Group 1, medium grazing, n = 10; Group 2, high grazing, n = 8). We assessed the status of animal welfare once in winter and once in summer. For statistical analyses we used mixed models for repeated measures, with group, season, and their interaction as fixed factors. At the WQ® criteria level, five out of nine examined criteria improved in farms with grazing between winter and summer. In contrast, the welfare situation in minor/zero grazing farms remained largely unchanged. At the level of WQ® measures, only the individual parameters “% of cows with hairless patches” and “% of lame cows” were affected positively by high grazing. Grazing offers a potential to enhance welfare of dairy cows during the summer season, while beneficial effects are not guaranteed when management does not satisfy the animals´ needs.
Biodiversity loss has been recognized as one of the major global challenges of current and future society. Land-using processes have been found to be among the most important direct drivers for biodiversity loss. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has established itself as a standardized tool for measuring environmental impacts of products and processes. However, there is no clear consensus on the integration of land-use related impacts on biodiversity in LCA-frameworks due to a lack of methodological guidance, suitable datasets and experience in real-world applications. Closing these gaps could enable political institutions and companies to determine the effects of their products on biodiversity over the entire life cycle. In this study, a method, aiming to integrate the biodiversity impact in LCA, is successfully applied on a product with a complex supply chain. A suitable dataset of the material composition of a modern electric vehicle adapted to match the specifications of the Volkswagen ID.3 is developed. To estimate land use requirements of five important metals a GIS-based approach is elaborated. 164 mines covering an area of 4,123 km2 in eight different countries are inspected by means of satellite imagery and enhanced with data from industrial reports to build suitable datasets for the impact assessment. Based on these datasets, five unit processes are developed and applied to the VW ID.3 model. The results indicate that cobalt, lithium and copper account for the major biodiversity impact among the assessed metals. A scenario analysis reveals a biodiversity impact reduction potential of at least 23%. To the best knowledge of the authors, this study presents the first biodiversity impact assessment in the supply chain of a modern vehicle. The datasets, the application example and the workflow developed and applied in this study can serve as methodological guidance to support LCA-practitioners and researchers in the integration and application of biodiversity impacts in LCA-frameworks and LCA-studies. Thus, it supplements existing indicators in a meaningful way and makes them usable for future LCA studies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.