Assessment of test–retest reliability of animal-based measures on growing pig farms

Temple, Déborah; Manteca, Xavier; Dalmau, Antoni; Velarde, Antonio

doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2012.10.012

Cited by 52 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…It was also found that animal victims of tail biting represented one of the least reported problems. The ratio of tail biting victims was slightly above the values observed by Temple et al (2011) (0.9% prevalence) and Temple et al (2013) (0.7 and 0.4% prevalence in two consecutive evaluations), assessing, respectively, normal pens on 30 and 15 GF pig farms in Spain. According to Temple et al (2013), if rare problems are considered (tail biting, for example), the evaluation of animals in hospital pens may be more representative than a random sample evaluation on the farm.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 63%

“…The ratio of tail biting victims was slightly above the values observed by Temple et al (2011) (0.9% prevalence) and Temple et al (2013) (0.7 and 0.4% prevalence in two consecutive evaluations), assessing, respectively, normal pens on 30 and 15 GF pig farms in Spain. According to Temple et al (2013), if rare problems are considered (tail biting, for example), the evaluation of animals in hospital pens may be more representative than a random sample evaluation on the farm. Therefore, it is possible to assume that if there are animals on the farm with less frequent problems (such as tail biting or rectal prolapse) and the hospital pens are being used correctly, these animals will be housed in these pens.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 63%

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Environment, facilities, and management of hospital pens in growing and finishing pig farms: a descriptive study

2017

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-The objective of this study was to describe the housing system in the hospital pens on growing and finishing (GF) pig farms. This work was developed by using a questionnaire and was conducted between January and April, 2016. Forty-four GF commercial farms (a total of 41,111 animals) were involved, seeking to raise issues concerning the facilities of the hospital pens, environment, management, feeding and the reasons for transferring the animals to these accommodations. About 98% of the evaluated farms had, at least, one hospital pen. Most of these farms presented a percentage of animals evaluated (PAE) in the infirmary, of less than 1.5% of the total capacity of the animal housing on the farm. In 93.48% of the farms, the criterion used to transfer the animals to the infirmaries was when they were identified as "impaired, hurt, suffering". In 47.83% of the cases, there were no differences between the hospital and common pens regarding the general management of the animals. The facilities and environment characteristics were similar in almost all hospital pens. Respiratory problems were the main reason for transferring pigs from the common to hospital pens. Under the conditions of this study, sufficient hospital pens exist on farms and overcrowding or competition for resources among pigs are avoided. However, there is no established standard among respondents about where to place the recovered animals.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 63%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 63%

Environment, facilities, and management of hospital pens in growing and finishing pig farms: a descriptive study

2017

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“…Even if the same individuals are assessed, there are still changes in the individuals such as weight gain or pregnancy status. The test-retest reliability thus refers to the tested method and its capability to produce consistent results despite routine procedures and minor changes in the object that are not of interest in terms of the assessment (Temple et al, 2013). Finally, feasibility means that the monitoring method produces reliable results at an affordable cost, and thus it analyses the cost-benefit ratio (Velarde and Geers, 2007).…”

Section: Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, there is a lack of studies concerning the reliability of the complete WQ protocols in on-farm use. Some studies have indicated that this may be problematic, especially concerning consistency over time (Botreau et al, 2013;Temple et al, 2013).…”

Section: Challenges Of the Protocolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of the assessment of animal welfare with special emphasis on the "Welfare Quality<sup>®</sup> animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs"

et al. 2015

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Abstract. This paper discusses the arising need for an objective, but feasible, reliable and valid method for assessing animal welfare on farms. Animal welfare has become especially important since the industrialisation of animal housing after the Second World War and as public awareness and concern has increased. Simultaneously, alienation of the public from agriculture has taken place, as the population has moved increasingly from rural areas to towns. This has led to a very emotional discussion concerning the welfare of farmed animals, and thus a need for not only a clear definition but also a way of objectively measuring it has arisen. It is probably best defined as a total of the different conceptions health, natural behaviour and positive affective state. In the last few years, different methods for an objective assessment have been developed; however, all of them still face great challenges in their practical implementation and acceptance. The most promising method is probably the Welfare Quality ® (WQ) approach, especially as it concentrates on animal-based parameters. The development of the WQ protocols emphasised not only the different conceptions of animal welfare but also especially the feasibility, reliability and validity of the parameters to be included. One of the main challenges of these protocols remains, however, the final aggregation of the results to a welfare score. Furthermore, a thorough cost-benefit analysis has not been carried out so far. Even more importantly, only a few studies have addressed the general reliability and validity of the complete protocols, and those studies that have addressed these issues have also revealed challenges concerning the interobserver and test-retest reliability of some of the included parameters. As an example, this is discussed in detail for the "Welfare Quality ® animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs". In conclusion, the WQ approach can be seen as promising, but it has also revealed that there are still a considerable number of challenges that need to be addressed in further studies on the WQ protocols in order to achieve constant improvement. These challenges should be borne in mind in the application of these protocols, which should not be simply referred to as a gold standard.

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“…Moreover, classification of some of these farms was compared with the general impression of observers who carried out audits of the farms (Botreau et al, 2009). As publication of the protocols, different studies on the validation of the measures used in the protocol have been carried out (Temple et al, 2011a(Temple et al, , 2011b(Temple et al, , 2012a(Temple et al, , 2012b(Temple et al, and 2013, assessing whether the measures included in the protocol are sensitive enough to distinguish between different types of housing systems, and between farms. However, there are few studies that have assessed whether the model is sensitive at criteria, principle or overall assessment level, and whether it can distinguish between different farms (de Vries et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of a multi-criteria evaluation model for animal welfare

Martin¹,

Czycholl²,

Buxadé

et al. 2017

Animal

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The aim of this paper was to validate an alternative multi-criteria evaluation system to assess animal welfare on farms based on the Welfare Quality ® (WQ) project, using an example of welfare assessment of growing pigs. This alternative methodology aimed to be more transparent for stakeholders and more flexible than the methodology proposed by WQ. The WQ assessment protocol for growing pigs was implemented to collect data in different farms in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. In total, 44 observations were carried out. The aggregation system proposed in the WQ protocol follows a three-step aggregation process. Measures are aggregated into criteria, criteria into principles and principles into an overall assessment. This study focussed on the first two steps of the aggregation. Multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) was used to produce a value of welfare for each criterion and principle. The utility functions and the aggregation function were constructed in two separated steps. The MACBETH (Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical-Based Evaluation Technique) method was used for utility function determination and the Choquet integral (CI) was used as an aggregation operator. The WQ decision-makers' preferences were fitted in order to construct the utility functions and to determine the CI parameters. The validation of the MAUT model was divided into two steps, first, the results of the model were compared with the results of the WQ project at criteria and principle level, and second, a sensitivity analysis of our model was carried out to demonstrate the relative importance of welfare measures in the different steps of the multi-criteria aggregation process. Using the MAUT, similar results were obtained to those obtained when applying the WQ protocol aggregation methods, both at criteria and principle level. Thus, this model could be implemented to produce an overall assessment of animal welfare in the context of the WQ protocol for growing pigs. Furthermore, this methodology could also be used as a framework in order to produce an overall assessment of welfare for other livestock species. Two main findings are obtained from the sensitivity analysis, first, a limited number of measures had a strong influence on improving or worsening the level of welfare at criteria level and second, the MAUT model was not very sensitive to an improvement in or a worsening of single welfare measures at principle level. The use of weighted sums and the conversion of disease measures into ordinal scores should be reconsidered.

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Assessment of test–retest reliability of animal-based measures on growing pig farms

Cited by 52 publications

References 37 publications

Environment, facilities, and management of hospital pens in growing and finishing pig farms: a descriptive study

Environment, facilities, and management of hospital pens in growing and finishing pig farms: a descriptive study

Review of the assessment of animal welfare with special emphasis on the "Welfare Quality<sup>®</sup> animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs"

Validation of a multi-criteria evaluation model for animal welfare

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Assessment of test–retest reliability of animal-based measures on growing pig farms

Cited by 52 publications

References 37 publications

Environment, facilities, and management of hospital pens in growing and finishing pig farms: a descriptive study

Environment, facilities, and management of hospital pens in growing and finishing pig farms: a descriptive study

Review of the assessment of animal welfare with special emphasis on the &quot;Welfare Quality&lt;sup&gt;®&lt;/sup&gt; animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs&quot;

Validation of a multi-criteria evaluation model for animal welfare

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Review of the assessment of animal welfare with special emphasis on the "Welfare Quality<sup>®</sup> animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs"