Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:38:48.159Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Welfare assessment in traditional mountain dairy farms: above and beyond resource-based measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

A Zuliani ,
A Romanzin ,
M Corazzin ,
S Salvador ,
JC Abrahantes  and
S Bovolenta
A Zuliani*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio 2A, 33100 Udine, Italy
A Romanzin
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio 2A, 33100 Udine, Italy
M Corazzin
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio 2A, 33100 Udine, Italy
S Salvador
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio 2A, 33100 Udine, Italy
JC Abrahantes
Affiliation:
Assessment and Methodological Support Unit, European Food Safety Authority, Via Carlo Magno 1, 43126 Parma, Italy
S Bovolenta
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio 2A, 33100 Udine, Italy
*
* Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints: zuliani.anna.2@spes.uniud.it
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The Welfare Quality® project was one of the largest research undertakings into animal welfare. Despite animal-based measures (ABMs) being increasingly preferred over resource-based measures (non-ABMs), the Welfare Quality® protocol (WQ) for dairy cattle has a non-ABM, Ease of Movement that classifies housing systems using a threshold of 100 days of access to pasture or, inversely, of 265 days tethered. Since traditional transhumance to alpine pastures lasts for approximately 90 days most farms tend to be classified as having a year-round tie-stall system by the WQ. The aim of this study was two-fold: to discuss the appropriateness of using non-ABMs and related thresholds in welfare scoring and to classify mountain dairy farms using ABM records. Initially, a comparison was made with scores obtained using the WQ protocol in farms where cows were: i) tethered all year; and ii) tethered but having regular exercise or reared in loose-housing systems. No difference in terms of welfare was detected between groups of farms regarding their housing systems, thus we investigated welfare focusing on ABMs. Therefore, farms were grouped into four clusters, according to their ABMs. The results indicated that good ABM scores can be obtained in most traditional mountain farms where cows are tethered for around 275 days a year and have access to highland pasture for the remaining 90 days. In this study, ABMs were effective tools for classifying mountain farms according to their welfare status and for informing targeted action to improve dairy cow welfare.

Keywords

alpine farminganimal-based measureanimal welfaredairy cattlesmall-scale farmtie-stall system
Type
Articles
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 203 - 211
Copyright
© 2017 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

References

Battaglini, L, Bovolenta, S, Gusmeroli, F, Salvador, S and Sturaro, E 2014 Environmental sustainability of Alpine livestock farms. Italian Journal of Animal Science 13: 431–443. https://doi.org/10.4081/ijas.2014.3155CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamini, Y and Hochberg, Y 1995 Controlling the false dis-covery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B57: 289-300CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blokhuis, HJ, Veissier, I, Miele, M and Jones, B 2010 The Welfare Quality® project and beyond: Safeguarding farm animal well-being. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A - Animal Science 60: 129–140Google Scholar
Bovolenta, S, Corazzin, M, Saccà, E, Gasperi, F, Biasioli, F and Ventura, W 2009 Performance and cheese quality of Brown cows grazing on mountain pasture fed two different levels of sup-plementation. Livestock Science 124: 58–65. https://doi.org/10.1016 j.livsci.2008.12.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bovolenta, S, Saccà, E, Corazzin, M, Gasperi, F, Biasioli, F and Ventura, W 2008 Effects of stocking density and supplement level on milk production and cheese characteristics in Brown cows grazing on mountain pasture. Journal of Dairy Research 75:357–364. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022029908003531CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burow, E, Rousing, T, Thomsen, PT, Otten, ND and Sørensen, JT 2013 Effect of grazing on the cow welfare of dairy herds evaluated by a multidimensional welfare index. Animal 7:834–842. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731112002297CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chavent, M, Kuentz-Simonet, V, Liquet, B and Saracco, J 2012 ClustOfVar: An R Package for the Clustering of Variables. Journal of Statistical Software 50: 1–16. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v050.i13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corazzin, M, Piasentier, E, Dovier, S and Bovolenta, S 2010 Effect of summer grazing on welfare of dairy cows reared in mountain tie-stall barns. Italian Journal of Animal Science 9: 59–68. https://doi.org/10.4081/ijas.2010.e59CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vries, M, Bokkers, EA, Van Schaik, G, Botreau, R, Engel, B, Dijkstra, T and de Boer, IJ 2013 Evaluating results of the Welfare Quality multi-criteria evaluation model for classification of dairy cattle welfare at the herd level. Journal of Dairy Science 96:6264–6273. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2012-6129CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Vries, M, Bokkers, EAM, Van Schaik, G, Engel, B, Dijkstra, T and de Boer, IJ 2014 Exploring the value of routine-ly collected herd data for estimating dairy cattle welfare. Journal of Dairy Science 97: 715–730. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2013-6585CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Vries, M, Bokkers, EA, Van Reenen, CG, Engel, B, Van Schaik, G, Dijkstra, T and de Boer, IJ 2015 Housing and man-agement factors associated with indicators of dairy cattle welfare. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 118: 80–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2014.11.016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dufour, S, Fréchette, A, Barkema, HW, Mussell, A and Scholl, DT 2011 Invited review: Effect of udder health manage-ment practices on herd somatic cell count. Journal of Dairy Science 94: 563–579. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2010-3715CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EFSA AHAW Panel 2012 Statement on the use of animal-based measures to assess the welfare of animals. EFSA Journal 10:2767–2796. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2767Google Scholar
EFSA AHAW Panel 2015 Scientific Opinion on the assessment of dairy cow welfare in small-scale farming systems. EFSA Journal 13: 4137–4239. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2015.4137Google Scholar
Fraser, D 2014 Could animal production become a profession? Livestock Science 169: 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livs-ci.2014.09.017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubert, L and Arabie, P 1985 Comparing partitions. Journal of Classification 2: 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01908075CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ISTAT 2012 VI censimento generale dell'agricoltura 2010. ISTAT: Rome, ItalyGoogle Scholar
Kirchner, MK, Ferris, C, Abecia, L, Yanez-Ruiz, DR, Pop, S, Voicu, I and Winckler, C 2014 Welfare state of dairy cows in three European low-input and organic systems. Organic Agriculture 4: 309–311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13165-014-0074-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, T and Romeo, R 2013 Mountain Farming Is Family Farming. Food & Agriculture Organization: Rome, ItalyGoogle Scholar
Landis, JR and Koch, GG 1977 The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics 33: 159–174. https://doi.org/10.2307/2529310Google ScholarPubMed
Lê, S, Josse, J and Husson, F 2008 FactoMineR: An R Package for Multivariate Analysis. Journal of Statistical Software 25: 1–18. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v025.i01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattiello, S, Arduino, D, Tosi, MV and Carenzi, C 2005 Survey on housing, management and welfare of dairy cattle in tie-stalls in western Italian Alps. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A-Animal Science 55: 31–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattiello, S, Battini, M, Andreoli, E and Barbieri, S 2011 Short communication: Breed differences affecting dairy cattle welfare in traditional alpine tie-stall husbandry systems. Journal of Dairy Science 94: 2403–2407. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2010-3606CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
OIE 2015 Animal Welfare and Dairy Cattle Production System. Terrestrial Animal Health Code. World Organisation for Animal Health: Paris, FranceGoogle Scholar
Oltenacu, PA and Broom, DM 2010 The impact of genetic selection for increased milk yield on the welfare of dairy cows. Animal Welfare 19: 39–49Google Scholar
Ostojić-Andrić, D, Hristov, S, Novaković, Ž, Pantelić, V, Petrović, MM, Zlatanović, Z and Nikšić, D 2011 Dairy cows wel-fare quality in loose vs tie housing system. Biotechnology in Animal Husbandry 27: 975–984. https://doi.org/10.2298/BAH1103975OCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popescu, S, Borda, C, Diugan, EA, Niculae, M, Stefan, R and Sandru, CD 2014 The effect of housing system on the welfare quality of dairy cows. Italian Journal of Animal Science 13: 2940–2951. https://doi.org/10.4081/ijas.2014.2940CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popescu, S, Borda, C, Diugan, EA, Spinu, M, Groza, IS and Sandru, CD 2013 Dairy cows welfare quality in tie-stall housing system with or without access to exercise. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 55: 43–54. https://doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-55-43CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Foundation for Statistical Computing 2015 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing: Vienna, AustriaGoogle Scholar
Regula, G, Danuser, J, Spycher, B and Wechsler, B 2004 Health and welfare of dairy cows in different husbandry systems in Switzerland. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 66: 247–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2004.09.004CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Romanzin, A, Corazzin, M, Piasentier, E and Bovolenta, S 2013 Effect of rearing system (mountain pasture vs indoor) of Simmental cows on milk composition and Montasio cheese char-acteristics. Journal of Dairy Research 80: 390–399. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022029913000344CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sogstad, ÅM, Fjeldaas, T, ⊘sterås, O and Forshell, KP 2005 Prevalence of claw lesions in Norwegian dairy cattle housed in tie stalls and free stalls. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 70: 191–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2005.03.005CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sturaro, E, Marchiori, E, Cocca, G, Penasa, M, Ramanzin, M and Bittante, G 2013 Dairy systems in mountainous areas: Farm animal biodiversity, milk production and destination, and land use. Livestock Science 158: 157–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livs-ci.2013.09.011Google Scholar
Te Velde, H, Aarts, N and Van Woerkum, C 2002 Dealing with ambivalence: farmers’ and consumers’ perceptions of animal wel-fare in livestock breeding. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 15: 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015012403331Google Scholar
Uetake, K, Morita, S, Hoshiba, S and Tanaka, T 2002 Flight distance of dairy cows and its relationship to daily routine man-agement procedures and productivity. Animal Science Journal 73:279–285. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1344-3941.2002.00038.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanhonacker, F, Verbeke, W, Van Poucke, E and Tuyttens, FA 2008 Do citizens and farmers interpret the concept of farm animal welfare differently? Livestock Science 116: 126–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2007.09.017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veissier, I, Andanson, S, Dubroeucq, H and Pomiès, D 2008 The motivation of cows to walk as thwarted by tethering. Journal of Animal Science 86: 2723–2729. https://doi.org/10.2527/jas.2008-1020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weary, DM, Ventura, BA and von Keyserlingk, MAG 2016 Societal views and animal welfare science: understanding why the modified cage may fail and other stories. Animal 10: 309–317. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731115001160CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Welfare Quality® 2009 Welfare Quality® Assessment Protocol for Cattle. Welfare Quality Consortium: Lelystad, The NetherlandsGoogle Scholar
Whay, HR, Main, DC, Green, LE and Webster, AJ 2003 Animal-based measures for the assessment of welfare state of dairy cattle, pigs and laying hens: consensus of expert opinion. Animal Welfare 12: 205–217Google Scholar