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The objective of this study was to understand dairy farmers' awareness of and perceived barriers to the implementation of best management practices (BMP) for the transportation of lactating culled cows being moved to auction or abattoir. An invitation to participate was emailed to all dairy farms in Ontario, Canada. Responses to this invitation were used to recruit additional participants through criterion purposive snowball sampling. In total, 28 dairy producers participated in 1 of 5 semistructured focus groups. All focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed with applied thematic analysis. Four themes were identified, including (1) transfer of responsibility, (2) interpersonal relationships, (3) juggling priorities, and (4) complexities of long-term planning. Individual participant knowledge varied, and participants also described misconceptions that other producers held surrounding transport duration and distances or the number of possible sales points for lactating culled cows. Participants did not agree on whether the producer's responsibility ended once the cow left their property or if all stakeholders from the farm to the final destination shared responsibility. Participants discussed the importance of existing trusted relationships with local cattle transporters and veterinarians to ensure information on best practices is shared. Participants also discussed how business pressures (e.g., production demands, space limitations) often challenge their ability to dry off lactating cows before transport; however, they mentioned that the degree of milk production may influence the destination of their animal (e.g., direct to slaughter for animals with high milk production). Some participants described a dynamic balance between business pressures and the potential for declining welfare of the animals under consideration for culling during lactation. Participants posited that producers who did not prioritize proactive herd management and producers nearing retirement had limited long-term planning for culling individual cows, which might lead to the transport of vulnerable or unfit animals. Finally, the lack of access to direct transportation to local slaughter was identified as an important barrier to adherence with the BMP for cull cows. In summary, many participants did not have an accurate understanding of what happens to cull cows after departing the farm, and they were unsure whether they retained a level of responsibility for an animal after it was transported from their farm. The priority placed by participants on trusted interpersonal relationships, the greater availability of peer-to-peer farmer training, and the professional accreditation of animal transporters, in addition to structural changes to increase local slaughter capacity, could potentially be leveraged to increase implementation of BMP and enhance lactating cull cow welfare., (© 2024, The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association®. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)

Research that involves agricultural animal welfare has typically aimed to improve welfare by decreasing disease, distress, and pain. Positive welfare does not necessarily occur with the absence of suffering but in combination with opportunities for behaviors or affective states desired by animals. Our objectives were to describe Canadian bovine veterinarians' and veterinary students' attitudes, professional normative values, and perceived ability to promote positive welfare for dairy cows, and to explore participants' provided rationale. With an online cross-sectional survey, Canadian veterinary practitioners (n = 78) and veterinary students (n = 148) were asked, on a 7-point Likert scale, about their attitudes, perceived professional normative values, and perceived ability of veterinarians to promote positive welfare for dairy cows. We used an applied thematic analysis approach within the qualitative description methodology to analyze participants' open-ended text responses. Quantitatively, participants had very favorable attitudes (mean ± SE; 6.3 ± 0.04) and perceived favorable values (5.7 ± 0.06) in the veterinary community toward positive welfare opportunities for dairy cows. Three themes were identified to explain the professional normative values: influences from within the veterinary profession, influences from outside the veterinary profession, and personal views of participants. Participants were confident that veterinarians could suggest positive welfare opportunities for dairy cows (6.1 ± 0.06) but were uncertain that the decision to suggest these opportunities to producers was within a veterinarian's control (4.3 ± 0.11) and were not confident that implementation of positive welfare opportunities was under a veterinarian's control (2.1 ± 0.07). Three themes were identified to explain the barriers to veterinarians promoting positive welfare opportunities for dairy cows: not practical to implement, resistance to change, and concern for the animal. Participants stated that many positive welfare opportunities were impractical or expensive to implement. We conclude that positive attitudes and positive professional values exist in the veterinary community toward positive welfare for dairy cows but that much uncertainty exists regarding a veterinarian's ability to influence change to current practices., (The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association®. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)