Wound lesions caused by ear tagging in unweaned calves: assessing the prevalence of wound lesions and identifying risk factors.

Identification of cattle by ear tagging is legally required to ensure traceability. However, studies indicate that ear tagging causes pain-associated physiological and behavioural responses. The wound healing process and prevalence of wound lesions in calves remain mostly unknown.

Influences on the assessment of resource- and animal-based welfare indicators in unweaned dairy calves for usage by farmers.

Consumers, industrial stakeholders, and the legislature demand a stronger focus on animal welfare of all livestock at the farm level by using suitable indicators in self-assessments. In order to deduce farms' animal welfare status reliably, factors that influence indicators' results need to be identified. Hence, this study aimed to apply possible animal welfare indicators for unweaned dairy calves on conventional dairy farms with early cow-calf separation and evaluate influencing factors such as age and sex of calves or climatic conditions on the applied indicators' results.

Implementation of management recommendations in unweaned dairy calves in western Germany and associated challenges.

To improve the welfare of livestock, it is important to assess management practices on farms and to identify areas where current scientific recommendations are rarely implemented. Differences in the implementation of recommendations might be explained by the individual farm as well as the characteristics of survey respondents and their attitude toward animal welfare. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess dairy calf management practices, compare them with current scientific recommendations, and to explore factors that influence implementation of the recommended management practices.