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Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb

INTRODUCTION: Knowing the national status of animal welfare, one can identify welfare problems and set a benchmark against which improvements can be compared. Such a status is potentially invaluable for tangible, sustained animal welfare improvement. The objective of this cross-sectional study was t...

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Autores principales: Barry, Conor, Ellingsen-Dalskau, Kristian, Garmo, Randi Therese, Grønmo Kischel, Stine, Winckler, Christoph, Kielland, Camilla
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10000292/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36908518
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1125860
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author Barry, Conor
Ellingsen-Dalskau, Kristian
Garmo, Randi Therese
Grønmo Kischel, Stine
Winckler, Christoph
Kielland, Camilla
author_facet Barry, Conor
Ellingsen-Dalskau, Kristian
Garmo, Randi Therese
Grønmo Kischel, Stine
Winckler, Christoph
Kielland, Camilla
author_sort Barry, Conor
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Knowing the national status of animal welfare, one can identify welfare problems and set a benchmark against which improvements can be compared. Such a status is potentially invaluable for tangible, sustained animal welfare improvement. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to report the status of animal welfare in Norwegian loose-housed dairy herds as assessed using the Welfare Quality(®) Assessment Protocol. Additionally, we investigated if the welfare status varied on a regional basis. METHODS: In total, 155 herds in eight of Norway's eleven counties were assessed by six trained Welfare Quality(®) assessors. This article presents the herd prevalences of common welfare issues in dairy production in Norway, as well as integrated welfare scores. To determine whether welfare status varied regionally in Norway, generalized linear modeling was used to estimate the mean welfare score for five regions in the four Welfare Quality(®) principles: A. Good feeding, B. Good housing, C. Good health, and D. Appropriate behavior. These estimated mean welfare scores and their 95% confidence intervals were subsequently assessed for significant variation. RESULTS: Encouraging findings included the low mean herd prevalence of ‘very lean' cows (3.0%) and the high proportion of cows (59.8%) which could be touched during avoidance distance testing, indicating a positive relationship between stockpeople and their cattle. Challenges affecting the welfare of Norwegian dairy cows were also identified. Of particular concern were issues related to the cows' environment such as prolonged times needed to complete lying down movements and integument alterations. No herd was completely free of changes to the integument and, on average, 77.9% of each herd were affected either mildly or severely. Animal welfare did not appear to vary much between the five regions assessed. Our investigation revealed significant regional variation between two regions (Trøndelag and Vestlandet North) in only the Welfare Quality(®) principle Good housing (p < 0.01). DISCUSSION: The almost complete absence of regional variation demonstrates that animal welfare status generally varies most at herd level. In conclusion, both welfare challenges and encouraging findings were identified in loose-housed Norwegian dairy herds. To improve animal welfare, herd-specific interventions are most likely to be effective in these herds.
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spelling pubmed-100002922023-03-11 Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb Barry, Conor Ellingsen-Dalskau, Kristian Garmo, Randi Therese Grønmo Kischel, Stine Winckler, Christoph Kielland, Camilla Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science INTRODUCTION: Knowing the national status of animal welfare, one can identify welfare problems and set a benchmark against which improvements can be compared. Such a status is potentially invaluable for tangible, sustained animal welfare improvement. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to report the status of animal welfare in Norwegian loose-housed dairy herds as assessed using the Welfare Quality(®) Assessment Protocol. Additionally, we investigated if the welfare status varied on a regional basis. METHODS: In total, 155 herds in eight of Norway's eleven counties were assessed by six trained Welfare Quality(®) assessors. This article presents the herd prevalences of common welfare issues in dairy production in Norway, as well as integrated welfare scores. To determine whether welfare status varied regionally in Norway, generalized linear modeling was used to estimate the mean welfare score for five regions in the four Welfare Quality(®) principles: A. Good feeding, B. Good housing, C. Good health, and D. Appropriate behavior. These estimated mean welfare scores and their 95% confidence intervals were subsequently assessed for significant variation. RESULTS: Encouraging findings included the low mean herd prevalence of ‘very lean' cows (3.0%) and the high proportion of cows (59.8%) which could be touched during avoidance distance testing, indicating a positive relationship between stockpeople and their cattle. Challenges affecting the welfare of Norwegian dairy cows were also identified. Of particular concern were issues related to the cows' environment such as prolonged times needed to complete lying down movements and integument alterations. No herd was completely free of changes to the integument and, on average, 77.9% of each herd were affected either mildly or severely. Animal welfare did not appear to vary much between the five regions assessed. Our investigation revealed significant regional variation between two regions (Trøndelag and Vestlandet North) in only the Welfare Quality(®) principle Good housing (p < 0.01). DISCUSSION: The almost complete absence of regional variation demonstrates that animal welfare status generally varies most at herd level. In conclusion, both welfare challenges and encouraging findings were identified in loose-housed Norwegian dairy herds. To improve animal welfare, herd-specific interventions are most likely to be effective in these herds. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC10000292/ /pubmed/36908518 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1125860 Text en Copyright © 2023 Barry, Ellingsen-Dalskau, Garmo, Grønmo Kischel, Winckler and Kielland. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Barry, Conor
Ellingsen-Dalskau, Kristian
Garmo, Randi Therese
Grønmo Kischel, Stine
Winckler, Christoph
Kielland, Camilla
Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb
title Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb
title_full Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb
title_fullStr Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb
title_full_unstemmed Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb
title_short Obtaining an animal welfare status in Norwegian dairy herds—A mountain to climb
title_sort obtaining an animal welfare status in norwegian dairy herds—a mountain to climb
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10000292/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36908518
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1125860
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