Abstract
In the EU Welfare Quality® (WQ) project, validated measures have been developed to assess the welfare
status of dairy farms. The on-farm welfare assessment, however, is a time consuming and therefore expensive
activity. Routinely collected data of various farm variables relating to health, fertility, productivity and
product quality, may have potential to signal impaired animal welfare on dairy farms. To determine this
potential, an analysis of the associations between such farm variables and the thirty-seven variables that
are part of the WQ dairy cattle welfare assessment is required. Three WQ variables, i.e. somatic cell count,
mortality and culling rate, are already routinely collected as part of regular farm records in the Netherlands.
The other WQ variables are not collected as such, but it was expected that they could be associated with
farm variables. The objective of this study was to explore associations between farm variables and WQ
variables in a literature review. Literature showed that nearly all WQ variables are associated with farm
variables. Often, single WQ variables are related to multiple farm variables. For example, the WQ variable
prevalence of lameness can be associated with the farm variables milk yield, fat and protein contents of the
milk, calving to first service interval, non-return rate, number of services, average age of the herd, and culling
rate. Inversely, single farm variables are associated with multiple welfare variables. Similar association
patterns were found for other variables and will be presented. It is concluded that routinely collected farm
data show potential to signal impaired dairy cattle welfare. Due to the multifactorial nature of dairy cattle
welfare, intelligent combinations of farm variables are most promising to detect farms at risk. In a next
step, associations will be verified in a field study.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Title of host publication | Book of abstracts (no 15) of the 60th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production, Barcelona, Spain, 24 - 27 August, 2009 |
Place of Publication | Barcelona |
Pages | 111 |
Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Event | 60th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production - Duration: 24 Aug 2009 → 27 Aug 2009 |
Conference
Conference | 60th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production |
---|---|
Period | 24/08/09 → 27/08/09 |