Welfare Assessment of 30 Dairy Goat Farms in the Midwestern United States

Abstract

Dairy goat animal welfare assessment protocols have been developed and conducted in Europe and the United Kingdom for dairy goats; however, there are no published reports of large-scale welfare assessment for dairy goats on farms in the Midwestern United States (US). Therefore, the objective of this study was to perform welfare assessment of lactating dairy goats and identify the most prevalent welfare issues on 30 farms across the Midwestern US. Thirty dairy goat farms (self-selected) were enrolled in the study if they shipped milk for human consumption (regardless of herd size). The number of lactating does on each farm ranged from 34 to 6,500 goats, with a median number of 158 lactating does (mean ± SD: 602 ± 1,708 lactating does). The protocol used was developed from available literature on goat welfare assessment but modified for use in the Midwestern US. Observations were made without handling the animals and included 22 animal-based indicators evaluated at the group- and individual-level. The observations were conducted during ~3–5 h during a milking session (either morning or afternoon) and time in the home pen. Principal components analysis (PCA) was carried out on the welfare assessment data from each farm. The first two dimensions of the PCA explained 34.8% of the variation. The PCA biplot indicated correlations between indicators. The most prevalent conditions observed across the 30 farms included any knee calluses (80.9%), any claw overgrowth (51.4%), poor hygiene (14.9%), skin lesions (8.9%), poor hair coat condition (8.3%) and any ear pathology (8.0%). These results are the first to provide the Midwestern US dairy goat industry with information to improve commercial dairy goat welfare.

Health and Welfare Survey of 30 Dairy Goat Farms in the Midwestern United States

“…The producers involved in the present study largely agreed that good animal welfare was a key priority for their farms; however, whether this correlates with actual positive welfare on-farm is not yet understood [9]. Some research suggests that consumer preference to buy products from animals that experience a high level of animal welfare does not necessarily correlate with those products being purchased, and that consumers may select products based on price and not ethical standards [15].…”

“…Welfare assessment of dairy goat farms is increasing, with research available in the UK [3], Europe [4][5][6][7] and South America [8]. However, to our knowledge, there are few studies of dairy goat welfare assessment in the US, with the exception of our own study [9].…”

“…This study was part of a larger study that performed welfare assessment of lactating dairy goats from 30 farms across the Midwestern US and identified the most prevalent welfare issues [9]. The present study was conducted between January and December 2019 and surveyed human participants; therefore, the survey protocol was reviewed by the Iowa State University Institutional Review Board (IRB; No.…”

“…Participation was voluntarily and producers were self-selected. Further details of farmer recruitment are described by Hempstead et al [9].…”

“…The objective of this study was to survey 30 dairy goat farms in the Midwestern US (enrolled in a welfare assessment study [9]) to provide insight into current husbandry practices pertaining to health, welfare, and production, and to identify potential areas of future research. Based on our knowledge of the Midwestern US dairy industry, we hypothesized that producers would have knowledge gaps in the areas of early kid management, and routine husbandry procedures, such as disbudding and hoof trimming.…”