On-FarmWelfare Assessment Protocol for Adult Dairy Goats in Intensive Production Systems.

Monica Battini,Sara Barbieri,Silvana Mattiello,George Stilwell,Ana Vieira,Elisabetta Canali

doi:10.3390/ani5040393

Abstract

Simple SummaryThe Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) project developed a practical welfare assessment protocol for lactating dairy goats in intensive husbandry systems, using animal-based indicators that cover the whole multidimensional concept of animal welfare. The strict collaboration between scientists and stakeholders resulted in an easy-to-use protocol that provides farmers or veterinarians with comprehensive but clear feedback on the welfare status of the herd in less than three hours. The protocol, which highlights key points and motivates farmers to achieve improvements, has received much attention from interested parties.Within the European AWIN project, a protocol for assessing dairy goats’ welfare on the farm was developed. Starting from a literature review, a prototype including animal-based indicators covering four welfare principles and 12 welfare criteria was set up. The prototype was tested in 60 farms for validity, reliability, and feasibility. After testing the prototype, a two-level assessment protocol was proposed in order to increase acceptability among stakeholders. The first level offers a more general overview of the welfare status, based on group assessment of a few indicators (e.g., hair coat condition, latency to the first contact test, severe lameness, Qualitative Behavior Assessment), with no or minimal handling of goats and short assessment time required. The second level starts if welfare problems are encountered in the first level and adds a comprehensive and detailed individual evaluation (e.g., Body Condition Score, udder asymmetry, overgrown claws), supported by an effective sampling strategy. The assessment can be carried out using the AWIN Goat app. The app results in a clear visual output, which provides positive feedback on welfare conditions in comparison with a benchmark of a reference population. The protocol may be a valuable tool for both veterinarians and technicians and a self-assessment instrument for farmers.

Highlights

The relevance of animal welfare in animal production systems has been increasing over the last decades, due to both economic and ethical reasons
Consumers have been focusing their attention on animal welfare as it is acknowledged to be a food quality attribute, like nutritional, safety, and organoleptic properties, and as an ethical concern [3,4]
This paper describes the approach and the methodology followed to develop the protocol and presents the Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) welfare assessment protocol for lactating dairy goats in intensive or semi-intensive production systems developed in the frame of the AWIN project by a team of researchers in Portugal and Italy

Summary

Introduction

The relevance of animal welfare in animal production systems has been increasing over the last decades, due to both economic and ethical reasons. Consumers have been focusing their attention on animal welfare as it is acknowledged to be a food quality attribute, like nutritional, safety, and organoleptic properties, and as an ethical concern [3,4]. In response to this demand, assurance schemes for high-quality animal products, in terms of health, safety, and respect for animal welfare [5], have increased. Animal welfare assessment at the farm level has become one of the most debated issues in the field of animal husbandry This issue has been receiving attention in specific working groups, such as the European Action 846 of the COST

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