Our goal is to address relevant animal welfare questions that solve real-world problems, generate creative solutions that can be implemented on farms, and lead to lives worth living for all animals.
Our current research focuses primarily on dairy cattle, investigating:
- Development, persistence, and significance of abnormal behaviors
- Effects of barrenness on animal behavior, cognition, and welfare
- Development of and motivation to perform natural feeding and ruminating behaviors
- Technological advances for real-time monitoring of animal welfare
- Welfare consequences of common management procedures
Across all research in this lab, we are committed to open access. Science should be available to all, and as such, we freely provide data, annotated code, and supplemental photos and images alongside our publications. See Dr. Downey’s Google Scholar or Dryad page for examples.