are for milking, leaving some time for social contact. That more or less equates to an ideal day’s work for a cow. By the same token, that means when cows are standing when she enters the stall, or if they are unsettled with a rough coat or dry muzzle, “these are all signs that something is wrong,” says Schmid. Her job is to make suggestions as to how conditions in the stall could be improved to give the cows a better quality of life. “It is not trivial: the small things can make a big difference,” explains Schmid. The last thing she wants to do is suggest that the farmers make improvements for the cows and, in doing so, make their work more complicated and time-consuming. That just increases stress, which would in turn impact the cows’ well-being. When working with their cows, farmers perform individual actions again and again. If these actions suddenly become even slightly more cumbersome, it will take so much longer to do everything. That is why farmers who plan ahead involve Schmid to advise them when renovating or building new stalls. In older, narrow buildings it can be challenging but not impossible to find solutions. “It is just a fact that healthy, happy cows are more productive and give more milk,” says Schmid. So, a farmer could benefit from her input by perhaps keeping one cow less and saving effort without losing money. On average 20 cows are kept on each farm in Switzerland, which is small by international standards. It’s logical, says Schmid, that smaller farms often have a closer connection to each individual cow. However, that does not mean that her work revolves around cow welfare for average-sized farms by Swiss standards. Her customers also include large holdings, “which aim to get the best from their cows”. It’s very important for them to have healthy and productive cows: “Cows bred for milk production can really prosper if they have light and air and a nice spot to graze and lie down.” Technical innovations, which don’t really fit the traditional image of manual farm labour, can be good for cows. Take milking robots as an example, which enable the cows to decide when and how often they want to be milked during the day. There are cows that prefer to be milked three or four times a day rather than just two times, which is what farmers normally do. This helps them ease the burden on their udders and avoid the stress of having to wait for milking every day. At the same time, Martina Schmid is keen to stress that this doesn’t mean robots are suited to every stall. Observing the cows’ signals is what really matters. Cows that feel comfortable spend 70 percent of their time lying down. They don’t like excitement and change. Here a herd of cows in the Swiss Jura. Photo: Joseph Haas Swiss Review / December 2024 / No.6 11
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