Document type: article from the ICAR website
Preview: The video of the webinar is available here.
Animal welfare is becoming increasingly important to farmers, consumers and retailers. In this regard, the reliable assessment of welfare on dairy farms is a crucial step in herd management and farm assurance, but potentially also for cattle breeding.
At present, there are many di¬erent types of welfare indicators used across the world. Can we move towards harmonization of welfare indicators for dairy cattle? The aim of this workshop is to present background information on the need for animal welfare assessment, the implementation of welfare assessment protocols to assess animal welfare on farms, the potential sources and synergies in uses of the information.
Preview: As an organization that promotes standardization and harmonization in animal recording, ICAR is uniquely placed to attempt this task, building on the IDF Guide to Good Animal Welfare in Dairy Production 2.0. The aim of this webinar is to present background information on the need for animal welfare assessment, the implementation of on-farm welfare assessment protocols, and an example of how harmonization of indicators has been achieved in the past.
The aim of this webinar is to present background information on the need for animal welfare assessment, the implementation of on-farm welfare assessment protocols, and an example of how harmonization of indicators has been achieved in the past.
Moderator: Christa Egger-Danner, Chair of the ICAR Functional Traits Working Group
- What is animal welfare? An introduction to animal welfare science and its applications - Marie Haskell, United Kingdom
- What animal welfare indicators exist? - Elsa Vasseur, Canada
- Putting on-farm welfare assessment into practice - Christoph Winckler, Austria
