How reliable is the multi-criteria evaluation system of the Welfare Quality^® protocol for growing pigs?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the reliability of the multi-criteria evaluation model included in the Welfare Quality® protocol for growing pigs to aggregate the animal-based indicators, first to criteria, then to principle level and finally to an overall welfare score. This assessment was carried out in a practical application study on a sample of 24 farms in Germany. Altogether, 102 protocol assessments were carried out in repeated visits to these farms in order to evaluate the inter-observer and test-retest repeatability of the overall scores calculated by the multi-criteria evaluation system. Reliability is then assessed by the calculation of different reliability and agreement parameters: Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficients (RS), Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC), Smallest Detectable Changes (SDC) and Limits of Agreement (LoA). Inter-observer repeatability was insufficient for the criteria comfort around resting, absence of injuries, expression of social behaviours, expression of other behaviours, good human-animal relationship and positive emotional state as well as for the principles good housing and appropriate behaviour. This is probably due in the main to insufficient repeatability of the underlying indicators that have been revealed in previous studies. Test-retest repeatability is predominantly insufficient. Overall, the present results highlight the importance of absolutely reliable indicators at the baseline level. Furthermore, it could be shown that the calculation procedure is partly incorrect and consequently needs correction. Therefore, this study is an important contribution to the future progression of the Welfare Quality® protocols and animal welfare assessment tools in general.

Dynamics of blood immunological indicators in the period of the reproductive cycle under different technologies of keeping

“…Говорячи про захисні властивості організму свиней, зокрема свиноматок відтворювального періоду, не можна не враховувати особливостей сучасних технологій їхнього утримання, потоковості виробництва свинини, великої кількості санітарно-гігієнічних обробок, часто невідповідних умов утримання та годівлі (Kalio et al, 2018;Krempa and Kozenko, 2018). Етологічні та добробутні потреби тварин зазвичай майже не враховують (Kozmenko, 2011;Kozmenko and Herasymenko, 2011;Czycholl et al, 2018).…”

How Far Are We From Data-Driven and Animal-Based Welfare Assessment? A Critical Analysis of European Quality Schemes

“…In addition to the incorporation of animalbased measures, the advantages of WQ R are that it has been scientifically validated (Knierim and Winckler, 2009;Temple et al, 2011) and that it can be used for multiple farm animal species including pigs and dairy cattle. Also, WQ R is possibly the most scrutinized welfare assessment protocol (Czycholl et al, 2018;Tuyttens et al, 2021) and has been widely used as a reference protocol in scientific literature. However, the extent to which various quality schemes utilize the animal-, managementand resource-based measures defined by WQ R protocols has been seldom discussed (Heinola et al, 2021).…”

Using Expert Elicitation to Abridge the Welfare Quality® Protocol for Monitoring the Most Adverse Dairy Cattle Welfare Impairments

“…The WQ protocols have been praised for being very comprehensive and for the implementation of a hierarchical approach to integrate data on a multitude of predominantly animal-based welfare measures enabling the assignment of farms or herds to one of the four overall welfare categories (not classified, acceptable, enhanced, and excellent). Although issues about consistency over time (6)(7)(8)(9) and about reliance on complete and standardized farm/slaughterhouse records (10)(11)(12) have been raised, the WQ protocols have been criticized mainly with regard to the (i) the feasibility [mainly labor costs per farm, e.g., (11,13)], (ii) the variable quality of the welfare measures included in the protocol (8,10,14), and (iii) the way these measures are aggregated into an overall WI (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). Indeed, uptake of the WQ protocols by the authorities and food industry at large for improving and better marketing of farm animal welfare has been below expectation.…”