Thus, the aim of this study was to expand the assessment made by Laven and Fabian [13] and develop a welfare assessment protocol for dairy cows (based on a combination of animal-based, resource-based and stockpersonship-based assessments) that would be suitable for farms adopting the pasture-based dairy farming system which predominates in New Zealand. In addition, the protocol needed to be achievable within a single day assessment period, in which one person collected **data** before milking (for a maximum of 2 h) and two people collected **data** during afternoon milking.