The Welfare Quality® assessment protocol: how can it be adapted to family farming dual purpose cattle raised under extensive systems in tropical conditions?

Abstract

Family farming is still the main source of income for many people in the tropical regions of the world. At the same time, modern society is quickly becoming more aware of the welfare of animals for human consumption. The main objective of this study was to illustrate the need to modify certain aspects of the original Welfare Quality® (WQ) protocols developed by the EU-funded WQ project, under the conditions of small community farmers in the tropics. Thirty-four dual purpose farms in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, which had their main production focus on milk but for whom beef production was also of significant value, were evaluated utilising a merged version of the WQ protocols for dairy and beef cattle. Based on their average score, the farms obtained at least an acceptable level in each indicator of welfare. However, after merging indicators from the dairy and beef cattle protocols of WQ in order to adjust it to the prevailing conditions in the tropics, a number of sections are not applicable. This is particularly true of the section related to good housing, where most of the items do not apply due to the absence of infrastructure; the farms obtained a very high score in this section but further studies to verify whether this reflects an accurate assessment of the welfare status should be carried out. In general, the approach of the WQ protocol was useful, however certain aspects are quite different from the conventional intensive farming systems predominantly used in Europe and there is a need to implement a number of modifications.

Development and Implementation of Baseline Welfare Assessment Protocol for Captive Breeding of Wild Ungulate—Punjab Urial (Ovis vignei punjabiensis, Lydekker 1913)

“…According to the current study, water availability (indicator 2.1), in conjunction with the number of water sources (2.2) and cleanliness of water sources (2.3), should be properly checked. All these indicators were validated in [10,25] for assessing the welfare of captive Dorcas gazelles and cows. Water was scored as "dirty" if it was polluted with food wastes or plastics, or was dark green in color with a foul smell.…”

“…If any indicators among these were observed, animals were scored as "obvious", and animals having no sign of these indicators were scored as "non-obvious". All these indicators were validated in [25,27,39,40] for the welfare assessment of cattle.…”

“…Two indicators were developed to assess the social behavior: "affinitive interactions" (9.1) and "agonistic interactions" (9.2). These indicators were also validated in [10,21,25]. An ethogram (Table 2) was developed based on the social behavior of Punjab urial [22], and information was obtained from a short reconnaissance survey for this study.…”

Identification of Suitable Animal Welfare Assessment Measures for Extensive Beef Systems in New Zealand

“…Cattle in New Zealand are already extensively reared on pasture and, as in accordance with Laven [5] and Hernandez [11], the 'access to pasture' criterion was not relevant. Another significant change to the Welfare Quality protocol was the replacement of 'good housing' with 'good environment'.…”

“…'Expression of other behavior' is a subjective measure and may vary with assessors and in this study, this measure was discarded, as in agreement with Laven [5] and Hernandez [11] as a feature only assessable in confined cattle. Idling behavior was also found by Laven [5] to be unsuitable to be included for pasture-based dairy cattle as cattle spend more time grazing than idling and, hence, it has been excluded for beef cattle in the same environment.…”