Crump, AndrewJenkins, KirstyBethell, Emily J.Ferris, ConradArnott, Gareth2023-02-062023-02-062022-04-13Crump, A., Jenkins, K., Bethell, E.J., Ferris, C.P. and Arnott, G. (2022) ‘Pasture access and eye temperature in dairy cows’, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. Informa UK Limited. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2022.20630201532-76041088-8705https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2022.2063020Publication history: Published online - 13 April 2022Pasture access can benefit dairy cows’ behavior, health, and welfare, but herds are increasingly housed indoors full-time. Recent infrared thermal-imaging (thermography) studies suggest that higher eye temperatures may be a physiological indicator of chronic stress. We, therefore, hypothesized that, compared to cows with pasture access, cows housed indoors full-time would have higher eye temperatures. In a two-phase crossover experiment, 29 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows experienced 18 days of overnight pasture access and 18 days of full-time indoor housing. We measured each animal’s eye temperature 16 times (eight/phase). During Phase One, cows with pasture access had higher eye temperatures than cows housed indoors full-time (contrary to our hypothesis). However, during Phase Two, cows with pasture access had lower eye temperatures than cows housed indoors full-time. It is, therefore, unclear whether eye temperature reflected disparities in dairy cow welfare between different housing treatments.en© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.Animal welfarecontinuous housingthermographyzero-grazingArticle