Animal Care
Animal welfare is integral to everything we do with the animals in our care. The Australian Dairy industry is committed to providing the best care for animals, for whole of life.
Policy
The Australian dairy industry has policies relating to animal care covering the following areas:
- The care and transport of calves.
- Surplus calves.
- Husbandry procedures.
- Pain relief.
- Tail docking.
- Calving induction.
- Euthanasia.
- Biosecurity.
- Live export.
We support dairy farmers, service providers and other members of the dairy supply chain to implement industry policies for animal care. Discover more about these policies at the Australian Dairy Farmer’s website.
Animal welfare standards
The Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle outline the standards for the welfare of all cattle, in all types of farming enterprises in Australia from extensive grazing to fully housed systems and apply to anyone with responsibilities for the care and management dairy cattle.
They provide a basis for developing and implementing legislation and enforcement across Australia, and outline what farmers ‘must-do‘ as the minimum standard and 'should-do' to ensure they are meeting expectations of welfare organisations, the industry and state governments for animal health and welfare.
Future priorities
The industry recognises that work will continue to be done in animal care to ensure the industry maintains its social licence to operate. Ongoing and emerging areas of focus include:
- Surplus or non-replacement calves.
- Animal welfare assessment programs and welfare assurance.
- Separation of cows and calves.
- The welfare of cull cows.
