Abstract
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.
Subject
General Veterinary,Animal Science and Zoology
Reference45 articles.
1. Protection of Dairy Cattle in the EU: State of Play and Directions for Policymaking from a Legal and Animal Advocacy Perspective
2. Directorate-General for Internal Policies, Policy Department C, Citizens’ Rights and 500 Constitutional Affairs. Animal Welfare in the European Union,2017
3. Welfare Quality® Assessment Protocol for Cattle,2009
4. Can animal-based welfare assessment be simplified? A comparison of the Welfare Quality® protocol for dairy cattle and the simpler and less time consuming protocol developed by the Danish Cattle Federation;Andreasen;Anim. Welf.,2014
5. Navigating the iceberg: reducing the number of parameters within the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol for dairy cows
Cited by
18 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献