Exploring farmers’ attitudes and determinants of dairy calf welfare in an expanding dairy sector

摘要

The 2015 European Union milk quota abolitioninitiated considerable expansion in the dairy sector inmany European Union countries, most significantly inIreland. However, this major production increase alsohad wider societal implications, such as negative environmentaland animal welfare consequences. In thisarticle, we used survey data of 441 Irish dairy farmersto assess farmers’ attitudes toward the welfare offarmed animals and dairy calves, as well as the reputationof the Irish dairy sector. We also explored howexpansion, breeding, calf management, and farmercharacteristics relate to calf welfare outcomes (i.e., calfmortality, calf export, and premature culling). In relationto attitudes, farmers expressed a general concerntoward animal welfare, while views toward dairy calvesand industry reputation were mixed. We used Ward’slinkage hierarchical cluster analysis to group farmersbased on their attitudes. The cluster analysis revealed3 distinct groups relating to high, medium, and lowanimal welfare concern. Herd expansion was negativelyassociated with being in a higher animal welfare concerncluster, whereas beef trait–focused breeding waspositively associated with it. In relation to dairy calfwelfare outcomes, our econometric analyses based onmultiple regression and binary choice models revealedthat expansion was positively associated with calf mortality,whereas improved breeding and calf managementfactors had a negative association. In addition, being inthe high animal welfare concern cluster was negativelyassociated with calf mortality. Furthermore, breedingdecisions were significantly associated with whethercalves were exported, and being in the high animalwelfare concern cluster was negatively associated withthe probability that calves were sent for live export. Finally,farmers’ breeding and calf management decisionswere associated with premature culling of calves. Overall,this article revealed strategies worth promoting toimprove dairy calf welfare, such as beef trait–focusedbreeding leading to greater dairy-beef integration.