Effects of grazing on welfare and production traits of organic dairy cows

In organic livestock systems, grazing is the preferred feeding source, especially for animal welfare and health implications, but it is not an obliged practice. In order to contribute on this topic, in an organic dairy farm, grazing was compared with permanent free-stall housing using two homogeneous groups of eight Bruna cows allocated to the following regimes: (G) grazing on barley grass for 5 h/d, and then kept in a free-stall structure and fed with unifeed, composed of hay and concentrate; (S) kept in a free-stall building for 24 h/d and fed with a diet based on the same unifeed. Comparison was based on milk production, behaviour, immune responses, metabolic status and oxidative stress …

Relationships among diet, plasma and milk total polyphenol content in milking goats.