Farmers taking responsibility for herd health development—stable schools in research and advisory activities as a tool for dairy health and welfare planning in Europe Silvia Ivemeyer & Nick J. Bell & Jan Brinkmann & Kornel Cimer & Elisabeth Gratzer & Christine Leeb & Solveig March & Cecilie Mejdell & Stephen Roderick & Gidi Smolders & Michael Walkenhorst & Christoph Winckler & Mette Vaarst Received: 20 December 2014 /Accepted: 15 February 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract Achieving and maintaining a high herd health and welfare status is an important aim in or- ganic livestock farming. The varying farming systems across and within countries call for models that are relevant for different farming types and that can be integrated into local practice. In stable schools, farmers take responsibility for health and welfare planning by identifying issues, setting goals, and act- ing to improve the health situation based on farm- specific data, e.g. milk production. This paper re- views the results from intervention studies that used a modified ‘farmer field school’ approach for animal health and welfare planning, providing an overview of ongoing activities and their implementation into advisory situations in selected European countries. Studies on stable schools as an intervention tool showed improvements regarding the specific project aim on the majority of the participating farms. Farmers and facilitators were convinced of the ap- proach and benefits for dairy herds. Farmers’ attitude and attention towards their herds and their ownership of the process appear to be crucial success factors for herd health and welfare situations. In some European countries, this method has been implemented in advi- sory practice, and in other regions, there are relevant and promising opportunities. Org. Agr. DOI 10.1007/s13165-015-0101-y S. Ivemeyer (*) Faculty of Organic Agriculture, Farm Animal Behaviour and Husbandry Section, University of Kassel, Nordbahnhofstraße 1a, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany e-mail: ivemeyer@uni-kassel.de N. J. Bell Farm Animal Health and Production Group, The Royal Veterinary College, Hertfordshire AL9 7TA, UK J. Brinkmann : S. March Thuenen-Institute of Organic Farming (TI), Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries, Trenthorst 32, 23847 Westerau, Germany K. Cimer : E. Gratzer : C. Leeb : C. Winckler Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Division of Livestock Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Gregor-Mendel-Strasse 33, 1180 Vienna, Austria C. Mejdell Norwegian Veterinary Institute, P.O. Box 750, Sentrum, 0106 Oslo, Norway S. Roderick Organic Studies Centre, Duchy College, Rosewarne, Camborne, Cornwall TR14 0AB, UK G. Smolders Livestock Research, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 65, 8200 AB Lelystad, The Netherlands S. Ivemeyer : M. Walkenhorst Department of Livestock Sciences, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse, 5070 Frick, Switzerland M. Vaarst Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, P.O. Box 50, 8830 Tjele, Denmark