An Appraisal of Methods for Measuring Welfare of Grazing Ruminants

Barrell, Graham K.

doi:10.3389/fvets.2019.00289

Cited by 30 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…These include recording baulking and assessing hoof problems and udder dirtiness. Similarly, the requirement that cattle were going through a routine handling process meant that, even with video cameras, complex behaviours could not be assessed as there was insufficient space and time [24] in the collecting pens for cattle to show such behaviours. Additionally, management practices during the handling limited the applicability of some measures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing an Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Cows in Extensive Beef Cow–Calf Systems in New Zealand. Part 1: Assessing the Feasibility of Identified Animal Welfare Assessment Measures

Kaurivi

Laven

Parkinson

et al. 2020

Animals

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Potential measures suitable for assessing welfare in pasture-based beef cow–calf systems in New Zealand were identified from Welfare Quality and UC Davis Cow-Calf protocols. These were trialled on a single farm and a potential protocol of 50 measures created. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of the measures included in this protocol on multiple farms in order, to develop a credible animal welfare assessment protocol for pasture-based cow–calf farms systems in New Zealand. The assessment protocol was trialled on 25 farms over two visits and took a total of 2.5 h over both visits for a 100-cow herd. The first visit in autumn included an animal welfare assessment of 3366 cows during pregnancy scanning, while the second visit in winter included a questionnaire-guided interview to assess cattle management and health, and a farm resource evaluation. Through a process of eliminating unsuitable measures, adjustments of modifiable measures and retaining feasible measures, a protocol with 32 measures was created. The application of the protocol on the farms showed that not all measures are feasible for on-farm assessment, and categorisation of identified animal welfare measures into scores that indicate a threshold of acceptable and non-acceptable welfare standards is necessary.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing an Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Cows in Extensive Beef Cow–Calf Systems in New Zealand. Part 1: Assessing the Feasibility of Identified Animal Welfare Assessment Measures

Kaurivi

Laven

Parkinson

et al. 2020

Animals

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show abstract

“…Due to the relationship between welfare and performance, animal productivity and longevity has been suggested as an indicator of welfare (Barrell, 2019). Since welfare is related to performance there is economic incentive to design dietary management, which allows animals to choose and display individuality and thereby improving eudaimonic well-being.…”

Section: Taxonomic Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal Design Through Functional Dietary Diversity for Future Productive Landscapes

Beck

Gregorini

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Pastoral livestock production systems are facing considerable societal pressure to reduce environmental impact, enhance animal welfare, and promote product integrity, while maintaining or increasing system profitability. Design theory is the conscious tailoring of a system for a specific or set of purposes. Then, animals—as biological systems nested in grazing environments—can be designed in order to achieve multi-faceted goals. We argue that phytochemical rich diets through dietary taxonomical diversity can be used as a design tool for both current animal product integrity and to develop future multipurpose animals. Through conscious choice, animals offered a diverse array of plants tailor a diet, which better meets their individual requirements for nutrients, pharmaceuticals, and prophylactics. Phytochemical rich diets with diverse arrangements of plant secondary compounds also reduce environmental impacts of grazing animals by manipulating the use of C and N, thereby reducing methane production and excretion of N. Subsequently functional dietary diversity (FDD), as opposed to dietary monotony, offers better nourishment, health benefits and hedonic value (positive reward increasing “liking” of feed), as well as the opportunity for individualism; and thereby eudaimonic well-being. Moreover, phytochemical rich diets with diverse arrangements of plant secondary compounds may translate in animal products with similar richness, enhancing consumer human health and well-being. Functional dietary diversity also allows us to design future animals. Dietary exposure begins in utero, continues through mothers' milk, and carries on in early-life experiences, influencing dietary preferences later in life. More specifically, in utero exposure to specific flavors cause epigenetic changes that alter morphological and physiological mechanisms that influence future “wanting,” “liking” and learning of particular foods and foodscapes. In this context, we argue that in utero and early life exposure to designed flavors of future multifunctional foodscapes allow us to graze future ruminants with enhanced multiple ecosystem services. Collectively, the strategic use of FDD allows us to “create” animals and their products for immediate and future food, health, and wealth. Finally, implementing design theory provides a link between our thoughtscape (i.e., the use of FDD as design) to future landscapes, which provides a beneficial foodscape to the animals, an subsequently to us.

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“…Currently a great effort is being made to develop reliable and valid methods to access farm animals' welfare. They include measuring cortisol and its metabolites, acute phase proteins, serotonin and some other molecules (in plasma, hairs or saliva), monitoring of activity via GPS and accelerometer sensors, infrared thermography, electroencephalography, heart rate variation and other measures of sympathetic-vagal activity [35].…”

Section: Economic Indices and Breeding Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital phenotyping technologies: an emerging tool in genomic selection and animal welfare science?

et al. 2021

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Farm animals provide about 30% of humanity’s food requirements [1]. The world’s population’s demand for animal products is expected to keep growing. New technologies in animal husbandry can make it possible to meet this demand and to reduce its impact on the environment. Genomic selection plays a key role in this process as a promising and safe method for improving genetic qualities of farm animals. Before the widespread of genomic selection, high cost of genotyping was the main factor holding back an improvement of animal farming. However, today, the bottleneck in genomic selection is a limited amount of high-quality phenotypic data, which is still either difficult or too costly to obtain [2]. New technologies in animal phenotyping become of special attention. The current paper reviews the next-generation technologies in animal phenotyping and revels the main challenges limiting its widespread in the example of dairy cattle.

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An Appraisal of Methods for Measuring Welfare of Grazing Ruminants

Cited by 30 publications

References 76 publications

Developing an Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Cows in Extensive Beef Cow–Calf Systems in New Zealand. Part 1: Assessing the Feasibility of Identified Animal Welfare Assessment Measures

Developing an Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Cows in Extensive Beef Cow–Calf Systems in New Zealand. Part 1: Assessing the Feasibility of Identified Animal Welfare Assessment Measures

Animal Design Through Functional Dietary Diversity for Future Productive Landscapes

Digital phenotyping technologies: an emerging tool in genomic selection and animal welfare science?

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