Results of testing the prototype of the AWIN welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats in 30 intensive farms in Northern Italy

Abstract

The AWIN project aimed at developing an on-farm welfare assessment protocol for adult dairy goats. A prototype protocol was tested in 30 intensive dairy goat farms to evaluate its feasibility in farms of different size. Time for applying the prototype was recorded and any other constraint was taken into account. Moreover, data collected during the prototype testing provided information on the prevalence of welfare issues in intensive dairy goat farms in Northern Italy. The prototype included 25 animal-based indicators (14 group-and 11 individual-level indicators). The prototype showed a good on-farm feasibility and it was highly accepted among stakeholders, as its application did not interfere with the daily routine. Approximately 2 h were required for the application of the prototype. When feeding racks were available, using them for locking the animals during the individual assessment resulted advantageous to speed the data collection and to reduce handling stress to the goats and disturbance to the farmers. Farm size and different management systems influenced the prevalence of some indicators, with small farms in general better welfare conditions compared to larger farms. The results of the present study represent an important starting point to set up an epidemiological database that may lead to improve the welfare status of goats. ARTICLE HISTORY

Consistency over time of animal-based welfare indicators as a further step for developing a welfare assessment monitoring scheme: The case of the Animal Welfare Indicators protocol for dairy goats

“…Body abscesses, mostly due to Caseous Lymphadenitis, are typically chronic conditions that persevere, supporting the consistency of this indicator over time. Caseous Lymphadenitis is recognized as an endemic disease in many countries (Williamson, 2001), and field studies in Portugal and Italy showed the presence of abscesses in 90% of the visited farms (Battini et al, 2016;Can et al, 2016). These findings support the inclusion of this indicator in a welfare assessment protocol, as it allows the identification of a widespread welfare problem (Ferrante et al, 2012).…”

“…All assessments followed the welfare assessment prototype protocol developed by the AWIN project for lactating dairy goats in intensive husbandry systems, which comprises 25 animal-based indicators structured in accordance with the 4 principles and 12 criteria developed by Welfare Quality [Botreau et al (2007a); for details on the description of animal-based indicators see Battini et al (2015Battini et al ( , 2016 and Can et al (2016)]. The AWIN prototype protocol combines 14 indicators at group level and 11 indicators at individual level, which are assessed to produce each indicator's prevalence.…”

“…Lower legs dirtiness was also a highly prevalent welfare problem in both Portuguese and Italian farms Can et al, 2016), and this might explain the high consistency of this indicator. However, during the on-farm testing of the prototype the visual assessment of cleanliness was greatly influenced by the animals' coat color, reflecting the limited validity and reliability of such indicator (Battini et al, 2015(Battini et al, , 2016Can et al, 2016); therefore, this measure replaced by a resourcebased indicator (bedding) in the final AWIN protocol for dairy goats (AWIN, 2015).…”

“…Severe lameness, udder asymmetry, overgrown claws, and knee calluses with a score of 1 showed Spearman's correlation coefficients and ICC estimates near 0.7 and 0.5, respectively, trending toward statistical significance (P < 0.05), which can indicate almost consistent results between visits. As a result, these indicators were all considered for inclusion in the AWIN welfare assessment protocol with slight adjustments (Battini et al, 2015(Battini et al, , 2016Can et al, 2016). This approach allowed us to discriminate between farms based on their variability over time; nevertheless, considering the observed dependence of Spearman's coefficients and ICC on the variance of the recorded population of farms, a complementary analysis is required.…”

The Use of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment for the On-Farm Welfare Assessment of Dairy Goats

“…The AWIN prototype protocol was applied on all the 60 farms by the same single observer per country [17]. Observers received a common training on the whole prototype protocol, including the description and application of each indicator and the order of data collection (Table 1) [17]. Preliminary studies revealed a good inter-observer reliability (on PC1, r = 0.910 and PC2, r = 0.906; p = 0.001) [18] of adequately trained observers.…”