Keywords: Animal-based measurements

The updated IDF Guide on Animal Welfare aims to promote the worldwide implementation of good animal welfare practices in dairy production and refers to key standards (OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code and ISO Technical Specification 34700: 2016). It provides recommendations on skills, the feeding and watering of animals, their physical environment, production practices and health management. To assess levels of animal welfare in dairy production systems, examples of outcome measurement criteria are provided.

This Opinion examines the available information on risks to the welfare of dairy cows in small-scale farming systems in Europe, including the impacts of production diseases. A methodology for assessing welfare in these systems is proposed.

This document sets out the indicators used to assess welfare in pig production (breeding sows, growing pigs), including the rearing and abattoir phases. The chosen indicators concern the resources available to the animal (housing, activities), measurements taken from the animal, and a qualitative evaluation. The document explains registration procedures, qualitative and frequency scoring methods and the aggregation of criteria from four of the five domains of welfare: nutrition, environment, health and appropriate behaviours. 

The document sets out the indicators used to assess the welfare of poultry (broiler and laying hens), including the rearing and abattoir phases. The chosen indicators concern the resources available to the animal (housing, activities), measurements taken from the animal, and a qualitative evaluation. The document explains registration procedures, qualitative and frequency scoring methods, and the aggregation of criteria from four of the five domains of welfare: nutrition, environment, health and appropriate behaviours.

The closely associated concepts of welfare and stress may be considered as opposites since welfare cannot be achieved under stress and vice versa. Stress was first considered as an unspecific response to any challenge taxing the organism's resources where the HPA axis plays a central role. Along the same lines, welfare was considered as the state of an individual on a continuum between poor and good depending on the efforts required to adapt to the environment. However, these views cannot explain opposite results such as up- vs. down-regulation of the HPA axis and hypo- vs. hyper-behavioural reactivity under chronic stress. ... It is therefore suggested that the discrepancies found in the literature in terms of responses of the HPA axis or modification of behaviour under aversive conditions may stem from differences in the way a situation is evaluated. It is argued that stress comes from the animal's evaluation of the outcome of a situation, and that welfare is the state resulting from that evaluation.

Presentation of the 10 general principles relating to welfare in production systems adopted by the OIE for the development of standards

This  e-learning module providing a concise summary of the scientific evidence that underpins EU legislation on pig enrichment and harvesting has been produced in seven languages, with the aim of improving consistency in professional judgements regarding legal compliance on farms. The mark profiles indicated that the roles of the participants had an impact on their scores but that the training led to overall improvement in: (i) their ability to identify enrichments which, due to their type or use by pigs, may be insufficient to ensure compliance; (ii) their knowledge of risk factors for tail biting; and (iii) their recognition of when tail docking occurs.

Special issue on Animal Welfare, containing 14 original articles on aims, methodology and purpose, ethical foundations, variants for different species, how it is perceived by the animal industries.

Welfare Quality® combines analysis of consumer perceptions and attitudes with current knowledge from animal welfare science. This has led to the identification of 12 criteria that must be properly taken into account by evaluation systems. To address these issues, it has been decided to focus on those indicators classified as animal-based, which address aspects of the immediate welfare status of animals, such as their behaviour, fear, health or physical condition. These animal-based measures include the effects of variations in farm system management (role of the farmer) as well as particular system-animal interactions. It is however clear that resource-based and management-based measures can also contribute to a welfare assessment if they are closely correlated with animal-based measures. In addition, resource- and management-based measures can be used to identify animal welfare risks and to identify the causes of poor welfare so that improvement strategies can be implemented.
This protocol describes the procedures and requirements for the assessment of the welfare of cattle and is limited to the main categories of production animals, i.e. feeder cattle, dairy cows and veal calves. The document first outlines the on-farm collection of measurement data on feeder cattle, followed by the procedures for calculating scores. The next section describes the collection of data at the abattoir to assess the welfare of feeder cattle at the time of slaughter. Next, the procedure for on-farm collection of measurement data on dairy cows and the calculation of scores for overall farm welfare assessment is described, followed by the protocols for on-farm collection of the same data from calves, along with a description of data collection protocols for measurements taken at the abattoir but relevant to farm welfare. These last two sections complement each other and are used together to calculate on-farm welfare scores for veal calves.

The European AWIN project has developed welfare assessment protocols that provide a range of reliable, feasible and practical animal-based indicators for the evaluation of animal welfare in order to promote the improvement of animal production systems across Europe. The protocols have been developed for species with very different husbandry systems, ranging from highly intensive to pasture-based systems, and involving different production parameters, from intensive dairy production to extensive meat or draught animal production.
This particular welfare assessment protocol is intended for adult female sheep (over one year of age), kept for milk and/or meat and has been tested for this specification. The protocol has not been tested for ewes kept primarily for wool production, or for dual-purpose meat and wool production, but it is expected that the protocol may also be applicable  for such cases. The protocol applies and has been tested on adult ewes kept indoors and outdoors. Since the indicators are based on sheep biology, many of the indicators may also be relevant to adult male sheep, but the protocol has not yet been tested for use in male animals.