Indicadores de alojamiento relacionados al bienestar animal en vacas lecheras

<p>El bienestar animal actualmente ha tomado auge en el mundo, sobre todo por sus repercusiones éticas, productivas y económicas. Los protocolos de evaluación para su estimación son una herramienta útil ya que permiten identificar los factores que disminuyen la calidad de vida de los animales, para estar en condiciones de mejorarla y hacer de la producción pecuaria una actividad cada vez más ética, humanitaria y eficiente. Por ello, el objetivo de esta investigación fue evaluar indicadores de bienestar animal asociados al alojamiento de vacas lecheras en unidades de producción a baja y mediana escala en la zona centro de México. Se evaluaron 2600 vacas lecheras utilizando parcialmente el protocolo propuesto por Welfare Quality®: tiempo necesario para echarse; colisión al momento de echarse; vacas que descansan parcial o totalmente fuera de la zona de descanso; limpieza en flancos, ubres y patas traseras; presencia de cojeras en diferente grado; presencia de áreas sin pelo y presencia de lesión o inflamación. Los valores encontrados en la mayoría de los indicadores evaluados fueron inadecuados considerando los parámetros sugeridos en el protocolo utilizado. El alojamiento de las vacas evaluadas no brinda las condiciones necesarias para el descanso apropiado, por lo que se recomienda realizar acciones urgentes en la zona evaluada con la finalidad de mejorar la calidad del alojamiento y por ende del bienestar y productividad de los animales. <br /><br /><br /></p>

Evaluación del bienestar de pollos con el protocolo Welfare Quality® Project a nivel comercial en Costa Rica

Introducción: Medir el bienestar de las aves bajo condiciones comerciales intensivas es complejo. El tipo de alojamiento, la naturaleza del estímulo, el tipo y tiempo de exposición, la edad, el sexo, el tiempo que tarda la evaluación y las diferencias individuales afectan los resultados. Objetivo: Evaluar el bienestar animal bajo condiciones intensivas, en galeras con ventilación natural y con ambiente controlado mediante el protocolo Welfare Quality® Project (2009). Métodos: Evaluamos 22 granjas comerciales diferentes, 11 galeras con ambiente controlado y 11 galeras con ventilación natural durante el 2018 y 2019. Se aplicó el protocolo Welfare Quality® Project con modificación en el principio de buena salud, por el método de transectos. Para cada criterio, aplicamos diferentes pruebas que transformamos en calificaciones mediante fórmulas proporcionadas por el instrumento denominado Spline funtions Welfare Quality®. Resultados: El 54% de las granjas obtuvo calificaciones excelentes y el 46% se calificaron como buenas. Las puntuaciones más bajas las obtuvimos en las pruebas de calidad de la cama, porcentaje de cojeras, porcentaje de pododermatitis y en la prueba cualitativa de comportamiento. Encontramos diferencias estadísticamente significativas p≤0,05 entre galeras abiertas con ventilación natural y de ambiente controlado, en la calidad de la cama, porcentaje de cojeras, densidad y ausencia prolongada de hambre. Conclusiones: Todas las granjas evaluadas, en ambos sistemas de alojamiento, propiciaron el bienestar de los pollos de acuerdo con el protocolo Welfare Quality® Project.

Animal welfare during transport and slaughter of beef cattle

Objective: To review how transport and stunning of cattle affect animal welfare. Approach: During the transport of beef cattle to slaughter plants, several factors affect animal welfare, such as travel time, stress, and load density. Additionally, the correct stunning of cattle helps comply with the animal welfare guidelines established by different protocols such as Welfare Quality®. Study limitations/Implications: Meat quality is affected by several factors, being of utmost importance the way animals are transported to the slaughterhouse, and they are stunned. Therefore, it is critical to perform these stages properly to obtain good quality meat; besides, it is a welfare issue. Conclusions: It is critical to comply with transport and slaughter procedures that guarantee good beef meat quality and ensure animal welfare to avoid stress in cattle as possible.

Animal Welfare Assessment in Antibiotic-Free and Conventional Broiler Chicken

The poultry sector is moving towards antibiotic-free production, both to challenge the increasing spread of the antibiotic resistance phenomenon and to meet market demands. This could negatively impact the health and welfare of the animals. In this study, the welfare of 14 batches of 41–47-day-old broilers raised by the same integrated company with and without antibiotics was assessed using the Welfare Quality® protocol. The total welfare score did not significantly differ between the two systems: the good-feeding principle was, on average, higher in the conventional batches, with statistical significance (t = −2.45; p = 0.024), while the other welfare principles (good housing, good health and appropriate behaviour) were slightly better in the antibiotic-free batches. Despite stocking densities averagely higher in the antibiotic-free batches, the absence of antibiotics did not seem to impact the good-health principle; in particular, hock burns, foot pad dermatitis and lameness were significantly less severe in the antibiotic-free batches (p < 0.0001, p = 0.018, p < 0.0001, respectively), which showed also a lower death rate (2.34% vs. 2.50%). Better management of antibiotic-free batches was reported, particularly concerning litter conditions. Further studies would be required to identify and standardise a set of managerial methodologies in order to improve the health of broilers raised without antibiotics.

Application of Principal Component Analysis of Sows' Behavioral Indicators of the Welfare Quality® Protocol to Determine Main Components of Behavior

Understanding behavior is important in terms of welfare assessments to be able to evaluate possible changes in behavior among different husbandry systems. The present study applied principal component analysis (PCA) to reveal relationships between behavioral indicators to identify the main components of sows' behavior promoting feasibility of welfare assessments by providing possibilities for variable reduction and aggregation. The indicators of the Welfare Quality® protocol's principle to assess behavior were repeatedly applied by two observers on 13 farms in Northern Germany. This included Qualitative Behavior Assessments (QBA) to evaluate animals' body language using 20 pre-defined adjectives, assessments of social and exploratory behavior, stereotypies, and human–animal relationship tests. Two separate PCA were performed with respect to the QBA: (1) adjectives were included as independent variables and (2) adjectives were pre-aggregated using the calculation rules of the Welfare Quality® protocol for fattening pigs since a calculation for sows does not yet exist. In both analyses, two components described sows' behavior. Most variance was explained by the solution with adjectives as independent variables (51.0%). Other behavioral elements not captured as indicators by the protocol may still be important for all-inclusive welfare assessments as the required variance of 70% was not achieved in the analyses. Component loadings were used to determine components' labels as (1) “satisfaction of exploratory behavior” and (2) “social resting”. Both components reflected characteristics of sows' natural behavior and can subsequently be used for variable reduction but also for development of component scores for aggregation. As defined for PCA, component 1 explained more variance than component 2. PCA is useful to determine the main components of sows' behavior, which can be used to enhance feasibility of welfare assessments.

Cuantificación práctica del bienestar animal en porcinos de pequeños productores del sur de Veracruz, México

Objetivo. Cuantificar el bienestar animal en porcinos de pequeños productores en comunidades del sur de Veracruz. Materiales y métodos. Se realizó un estudio en diez unidades de producción, donde se llevó a cabo un diagnóstico y se analizaron diez variables en los rubros de alimentación, alojamiento, salud y comportamiento de los lechones, de acuerdo con el protocolo Welfare Quality® de la Unión Europea y ponderado de 0 a 1, donde 0= nulo, 0.5= regular y 1= ideal bienestar animal. Resultados. La relación humano-animal fue satisfactoria; sin embargo, existió bajo confort térmico ligado al tipo de instalaciones. Los principales indicadores de bienestar animal fueron alimentación 0.9±0.235, alojamiento 0.6±0.319, salud 0.7±0.252 y comportamiento 0.9±0.192. Conclusiones. La cuantificación del bienestar animal permite identificar de forma práctica aspectos de manejo que los productores han desarrollado de forma intrínseca como la relación humano-animal y la limpieza de las instalaciones. El bienestar animal puede ser cuantificado de forma práctica, ofreciendo alternativas de manejo a los productores, quienes desarrollan actividades adecuadas (limpieza frecuente de las instalaciones) y no adecuadas (alimentación con bajo aporte de proteína, corte de cola y castración).

Using Expert Elicitation to Abridge the Welfare Quality® Protocol for Monitoring the Most Adverse Dairy Cattle Welfare Impairments

The Welfare Quality® consortium has developed and proposed standard protocols for monitoring farm animal welfare. The uptake of the dairy cattle protocol has been below expectation, however, and it has been criticized for the variable quality of the welfare measures and for a limited number of measures having a disproportionally large effect on the integrated welfare categorization. Aiming for a wide uptake by the milk industry, we revised and simplified the Welfare Quality® protocol into a user-friendly tool for cost- and time-efficient on-farm monitoring of dairy cattle welfare with a minimal number of key animal-based measures that are aggregated into a continuous (and thus discriminative) welfare index (WI). The inevitable subjective decisions were based upon expert opinion, as considerable expertise about cattle welfare issues and about the interpretation, importance, and validity of the welfare measures was deemed essential. The WI is calculated as the sum of the severity score (i.e., how severely a welfare problem affects cow welfare) multiplied with the herd prevalence for each measure. The selection of measures (lameness, leanness, mortality, hairless patches, lesions/swellings, somatic cell count) and their severity scores were based on expert surveys (14–17 trained users of the Welfare Quality® cattle protocol). The prevalence of these welfare measures was assessed in 491 European herds. Experts allocated a welfare score (from 0 to 100) to 12 focus herds for which the prevalence of each welfare measure was benchmarked against all 491 herds. Quadratic models indicated a high correspondence between these subjective scores and the WI (R2 = 0.91). The WI allows both numerical (0–100) as a qualitative (“not classified” to “excellent”) evaluation of welfare. Although it is sensitive to those welfare issues that most adversely affect cattle welfare (as identified by EFSA), the WI should be accompanied with a disclaimer that lists adverse or favorable effects that cannot be detected adequately by the current selection of measures.

A New, Practical Animal Welfare Assessment for Dairy Farmers

The Welfare Quality® assessment protocol (WQ) is the most extensive way to measure animal welfare. This study was set up to determine if resource-based welfare indicators, that are easier and faster to measure, could replace the more time consuming, animal-based measurements of the WQ. The WQ was applied on 60 dairy farms in the Netherlands, with good, moderate and poor welfare. The WQ protocol classified most farms (87%) as ‘acceptable’. Several of the animal-based measures of WQ correlated well with measures in the environment. Using these correlations, an alternative welfare assessment protocol (new Welfare Monitor) was designed, which takes approximately 1.5 h for a farm with 100 dairy cows. Because the opinion of farmers about welfare assessment is important if one wants to improve conditions for the cows at a farm, another objective of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the new Welfare Monitor for the farmer. Over two years, the farms were visited, and advice was given to improve the conditions at the farm. After the first welfare assessment and advice, farmers improved the conditions for their cows substantially. Farms where the category score had increased made more improvements on average than those that did not upgrade.