Abstract
Research into the veterinary perception of animal welfare is becoming ever more relevant. Following previous studies on Croatian veterinary students? attitudes and opinions towards farm animal and pet welfare, the present study assessed their attitudes towards sheep and goat welfare, focusing on the year of veterinary medicine study and area of student residence. The questionnaire survey involved students of all six years of the integrated undergraduate and graduate study programme at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia. First-year students filled out the questionnaire twice, before and after having attended the animal welfare subject. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section included questions on student demographic and experiential characteristics, whereas the second section asked them to define the level of cognition, sentience and welfare compromise in sheep and goats through five-point Likert scale questions. Study results revealed that students agreed that sheep and goats have cognitive abilities and feelings, but they neither agreed nor disagreed about their welfare compromise. There was no significant difference in student responses according to years of study or between first-year student responses before and after having attended the animal welfare subject or according to areas of student residence. These results could suggest poor student interaction with small ruminants and, therefore, help expand the respective curriculum.
Highlights
Animal welfare refers to how an animal copes with its living conditions
There was no significant difference (P 0.05) in the mean student responses to any of the statements according to years of study or between first-year student responses before and after having attended the animal welfare subject
The study revealed that students perceived sheep and goats as species capable of cognition and sentience, which is consistent with the study conducted by Levine et al (2005), while expressing neutral attitudes about their welfare compromise
Summary
An animal is in a good state of welfare if it is healthy, comfortable, well-fed, safe, able to express species-specific behaviour, and if it is not suffering from unpleasant states such as pain, fear and distress. Good animal welfare implies disease prevention and adequate veterinary care, provision of shelter (if necessary), appropriate management and nutrition, a stimulating and safe environment, and humane handling and killing (OIE, t 2018). Small ruminants are generally perceived to have a higher welfare level as compared with pigs, poultry and cattle. This could be ascribed to the fact that sheep and goats
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