Welfare Principle	Welfare Criteria	Welfare Measures	Assessment Method Observations Made In The Race Or In Holding Pens If No Race
Good Feeding	Absence of hunger	Body condition score (BCS)	% thin cows in the herd based on score 1–2.5 on the 5-point BCS scale that is commonly used in Namibia. Due to the drought conditions, another score of severity was added to differentiate between thin (>2–2.5 scale) and very thin/emaciated (1–2 scale) cows.
		Rumen fill score (RFS)	% of cows with hollow/empty rumen.
		Distance to grazing	The questionnaire asked how far cattle had to walk to access grazing (≤1.6 mm, 1: 1.6 km–3.2 km and >3.2 km).
	Absence of thirst	Distance to water	Average distance to water source. Distance to water in semi-commercial and communal villages was estimated as the distance to grazing as water points are close to yards and cattle come to drink after grazing (≤1.6 mm, 1: 1.6 km–3.2 km and >3.2 km).
Appropriate Environment	Comfort around environment	Dirtiness	“Dirtiness” recorded by averaging the three measures of dirty tails, dirty hind quarters, and dirty flanks.
	Ease of movement	Hazards	Identify pasture hazards (e.g., steep hills) and presence of dangerous objects/garbage, and loss of animals to such hazards: (1) no hazards, (2) 1 or 2 hazards and (3) 3 or more hazards or animals dying in any hazard.
	Thermal comfort	Shade	Subjective assessment of shade in the paddocks (presence of trees, shrubs, galleys, synthetic canopies) as enough or insufficient.
Good Health	Absence of injuries/physical impairment	Abrasions, Swelling, and Hair loss	% of cows with abrasions/fresh scratches or cuts, swellings and hairless patches extending >1 cm.
		Extraneous (multiple) brands/wounds/cuts	Observation of brand mark wounds (>2 cm) or more than once branded/marked (i.e., stock brand, initials or name of a farmer branded) and extraneous cuts (i.e., dew-lap skin cuts).
		Long/sharp horns	Number of observed cows with sharp/long horns (>5 cm in length, sharp and forward facing to pose a risk of injuring others).
		Broken tails	Observations of abnormal tails (misaligned or broken at the tail head).
	Absence of disease and pain	Blindness	% of cows with affected eye(s) by visual assessment and/or testing with hand.
		Ocular discharges	% of cows with ocular discharges extending 2 cm.
		Nasal discharges	% of cows with nasal discharges extending 2 cm.
		Lameness	% of cows with unsteady gait exciting the race to paddocks or from the holding pen to the paddocks.
		Diarrhea	% of cows with diarrhea.
		Dystocia	% reported by famers during questionnaire-guided interview.
		Mortality	% of cattle which had accidental deaths and deaths/slaughter on-farm due to disease were combined. It was emphasized that mortality rate included deaths due to predators, toxic plants, and snake bites.
	External parasites	Fly burden Tick burden	Separate impression of more than 20 number of flies (i.e., horse flies) and ticks on any part of the body of a cow.
	Painful management procedures	Castration, Disbudding, Ear tagging/notch	Record age and use of local anesthetic on a 3-point level: (1) No disbud/castration, (2) ≤2 months and (3) >2 months. For ear tagging/notching the scoring was: no tag or use anesthetics; tag with no anesthetics and notching/cutting with no anesthetics.
		Hot-iron branding	Record age of branding and use of local anesthetic (in questionnaire) on a 3-point score: (1) no branding or use anesthetics, (2) one brand (compulsory) and (3) more than 1 brand.
Stockpersonship	Animal handling stock-personship and resource-based measures	Fearful/agitated	% cows fearful/agitated in the race/forcing pen (climbing on others).
		Running	% of cows running (taking ≥2 strides at a gait faster than a trot) when cows exit from the race or holding pen to the paddocks.
		Stumbling	% of cows stumbling were cows with their knees/hocks contacted the ground, on exiting the race or if moving into a group of cows include assessment from holding pen to the paddocks. Also included those cattle stumbling in the holding pens when being drafted for restraint in the absence of a race.
		Falling	% of cows falling (torso contacted the ground) or lying down while in the race and forcing pen were recorded. Also include those cattle falling in the holding pens when being drafted for restraint in the absence of a race.
		Hitting cows	Subjective categorical observation of the group rather than the individual cow: (1) no hitting; (2) occasional hitting (≤10% of cows); (3) frequent hitting (>10% of cows) into the forcing pen and race. Included proportion of cattle hit in pens when being drafted for restraining in the absence of a race.
		Use of electrical prodders	Estimate the proportion of cows that were prodded with an electrical goad on any part of the body while drafted or standing in the race, pens or yards on a 3-point level: (1) no prodding, (2) few/occasional prod (≤1% cows) and (3) many/frequent prod (>1% cows prodded).
		Tail twisting	Estimate the proportion of cows with tail twisted while drafted or standing in the race or pens on a 3-point level: (1) no twisting, (2) occasional/few twist (≤10% of cows) and (3) frequent twist (>10% of cows).
		Mis-catching	Estimate of the proportion of cows that were mis-caught on any part of the body while gates were closed into or within the race. If no race, available mis-catch was recorded if more than one attempt was made to capture/restrain an individual animal with ropes or if a cow did not stand still when a rope was secured around the legs.
		Noise of Handlers Noise of Equipment/ machinery	Subjective categorical assessment of handlers’ noise (e.g., shouting) and equipment noise (e.g., race or chute gate) and machinery (e.g., generators etc.): (1) no noise, (2) minor less frequent audible noise or (3) repeated, unpleasantly noisy.
		Dogs noise around the yard	Categorical subjective assessment: (1) no dogs; (2) quiet dogs; (3) Noisy or repeatedly audible dogs.
		Health checks	Record frequency of health checks on cows during winter/pregnancy: (1) daily, (2) once-twice/week and (3) more than weekly.
		Yarding frequency	Record frequency (number of times) of yardings per year. Emphasized cattle yardings that only involve restraining (e.g., vaccinations and tagging); (1) >4 times, (2) 3–4 times and (3) 0–2 times.
		Yard design flow	In the absence of a race, assessment included farmers’ cattle handling skills and movement: (1) effective handling (manual restraint of cows was easily achieved), (2) minor issues with flow and/or restraint/of cattle, (3) major issues with flow and/or restraint (e.g., lengthy periods of running behind cows while trying to capture and restrain them).