Take a C for Comfort, an O for Oxidative Balance, a W for Well-being and an S for Sustainability, add them together and you have C.O.W.S., a new program from Novus International to help dairy producers have happier and more productive animals.

“The COWS program is our effort to benchmark and understand cow comfort and lameness and lying time and how that ties into stress and the ability to improve those variables at the dairy level,” says Ed Galo, with Novus’ Dairy Business Unit.

Galo says oxidative balance is really a linchpin for the other three pillars of the C.O.W.S. program. “Oxidative balance captures all stress at a dairy,” he explained. “You have heat stress, you have lameness, the animal deals with that by expending energy, which drives oxidation in a cow.”

Listen to Galo explain the COWS program here: Ed Galo Interview

To create this one-of-a-kind program, Novus partnered with the University of British Columbia Animal Welfare Program to develop a nationwide benchmarking study. Marina (Nina) von Keyserlingk says they did a pilot program on 43 farms with a couple of graduate students that caught the attention of Novus. “We did 43 farms. By the time we were three quarters of the way through this project, we had more farmers wanting to participate than we had time for,” she explains.

Nina says the program allows dairy producers to objectively see how they can make changes to improve the environment for their herd. “They can get the data and they can implement changes but they’re in control,” she said. “Ultimately they want to create the best environment for their cows.”

Listen to my interview with Nina here: Marina von Keyserlingk

Find out more about the C.O.W.S. program at www.novuscows.com.

See photos from the Novus International C.O.W.S. program launch here – Novus C.O.W.S. Program Photo Album