The Welfare of Dairy Cows in Pasture, Free Stall, and Compost Barn Management Systems in a Brazilian Subtropical Region

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Understanding the critical points of welfare of animal production systems is an important tool to identify strategies to improve the quality of life of animals. This work showed that rearing systems affect the welfare of dairy cows when the Welfare Quality(®) protocol was applied in 51 farms; 17 in the pasture-based, 17 in the compost barn and 17 in the free stall systems. The results showed that the pasture-based system scored better in most measures, except for those related to the provision of quality water to the animals. The free stall system has more welfare issues than the pasture-based system and the compost barn system. The compost barn system has advantages in the “good housing” principle, when compared to the free stall. This work carried out a survey that can be used as a basis for the establishment of strategies to improve animal welfare, in a specific way to the adopted rearing system. ABSTRACT: The effect of milk production systems on the welfare of dairy cows has been studied worldwide, but studies that compare pasture-based, compost barn, and free stall systems, according to animal welfare, are more scarce. In this work, the welfare of 51 dairy herds, including 17 from each management system, was investigated through the application of the Welfare Quality(®) protocol. Descriptive statistics and the Kruskal–Wallis non-parametric method were used to analyze variables. In the present work, the welfare of the evaluated herds was significantly better in the pasture-based system than in the confinement systems. However, the pasture-based system presented weaknesses in providing water resources. The compost barn had fewer animal welfare critical points than the free stall system, as well as it was better than the free stall in measures related to comfort and health. The free stall did not present better scores than the other systems. It is concluded that the welfare of dairy cows is affected by the rearing system, with better scores, in most measures, in the pasture-based system, followed by the compost barn and, finally, the free stall.