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Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Family-run cattle farms in the tropics deal with two distinct seasons, the dry and the rainy, where features such as resources, diseases and climate are variable. Nevertheless, an acceptable level of animal welfare must be maintained throughout the year. The purpose of this study was...

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Autores principales: Hernandez, Adalinda, Berg, Charlotte, Westin, Rebecka, Galina, Carlos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6071294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30037102
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani8070125
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author Hernandez, Adalinda
Berg, Charlotte
Westin, Rebecka
Galina, Carlos
author_facet Hernandez, Adalinda
Berg, Charlotte
Westin, Rebecka
Galina, Carlos
author_sort Hernandez, Adalinda
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Family-run cattle farms in the tropics deal with two distinct seasons, the dry and the rainy, where features such as resources, diseases and climate are variable. Nevertheless, an acceptable level of animal welfare must be maintained throughout the year. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were animal welfare issues at farms affected by either the dry or the rainy season. Forty-five dual-purpose family farms in the Mexican tropics were assessed via the Welfare Quality(®) protocol. The animal welfare assessment on these farms obtained better results during the dry season, hence the season presenting a greater risk to animal welfare of dual-purpose cattle raised under tropical conditions is the rainy season. However, there were management-related differences observed between the two seasons, and the dry season also had some animal welfare threats. The fact that farms scored higher during the dry season is possibly the result of farmer awareness, leading to modification of their systems to provide animals with the necessary inputs to meet their production needs. If these modifications, such as providing supplementary feed and water points were not fulfilled, then welfare conditions might have been jeopardized. ABSTRACT: Conditions on farms in the tropics can differ greatly depending on the season of the year. Characteristics such as disease prevalence, climate and availability of resources may not be constant all year around; however an acceptable level of animal welfare must be maintained throughout the year. Since it is neither practical nor economically feasible to perform several assessments per year, the purpose of this study was to define whether there were animal welfare issues at farms that were affected by the season to identify which season would present a greater risk to animal welfare, using a risk-based approach. Forty-five dual-purpose family farms in the Mexican tropics were assessed via the Welfare Quality(®) protocol. During the rainy season, 2.2% of the farms were classified as excellent, 57.8% as enhanced, 31.1% as acceptable and 8.9% as unclassified. In the dry season, 31.1% were classified as excellent, 68.9% as enhanced and none of the farms were categorized as acceptable or unclassified. Consequently, the season which presented the greatest risk to animal welfare of dual-purpose cattle raised under tropical conditions was the rainy season. However, there were management-related differences observed between the two seasons and the dry season also had some animal welfare threats. The fact that farms scored higher during the dry season is possibly the result of farmer awareness, leading to modification of their systems to provide animals with the necessary inputs to meet their production needs. If these modifications were not fulfilled, then welfare conditions might have been jeopardized.
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spelling pubmed-60712942018-08-09 Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions Hernandez, Adalinda Berg, Charlotte Westin, Rebecka Galina, Carlos Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Family-run cattle farms in the tropics deal with two distinct seasons, the dry and the rainy, where features such as resources, diseases and climate are variable. Nevertheless, an acceptable level of animal welfare must be maintained throughout the year. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were animal welfare issues at farms affected by either the dry or the rainy season. Forty-five dual-purpose family farms in the Mexican tropics were assessed via the Welfare Quality(®) protocol. The animal welfare assessment on these farms obtained better results during the dry season, hence the season presenting a greater risk to animal welfare of dual-purpose cattle raised under tropical conditions is the rainy season. However, there were management-related differences observed between the two seasons, and the dry season also had some animal welfare threats. The fact that farms scored higher during the dry season is possibly the result of farmer awareness, leading to modification of their systems to provide animals with the necessary inputs to meet their production needs. If these modifications, such as providing supplementary feed and water points were not fulfilled, then welfare conditions might have been jeopardized. ABSTRACT: Conditions on farms in the tropics can differ greatly depending on the season of the year. Characteristics such as disease prevalence, climate and availability of resources may not be constant all year around; however an acceptable level of animal welfare must be maintained throughout the year. Since it is neither practical nor economically feasible to perform several assessments per year, the purpose of this study was to define whether there were animal welfare issues at farms that were affected by the season to identify which season would present a greater risk to animal welfare, using a risk-based approach. Forty-five dual-purpose family farms in the Mexican tropics were assessed via the Welfare Quality(®) protocol. During the rainy season, 2.2% of the farms were classified as excellent, 57.8% as enhanced, 31.1% as acceptable and 8.9% as unclassified. In the dry season, 31.1% were classified as excellent, 68.9% as enhanced and none of the farms were categorized as acceptable or unclassified. Consequently, the season which presented the greatest risk to animal welfare of dual-purpose cattle raised under tropical conditions was the rainy season. However, there were management-related differences observed between the two seasons and the dry season also had some animal welfare threats. The fact that farms scored higher during the dry season is possibly the result of farmer awareness, leading to modification of their systems to provide animals with the necessary inputs to meet their production needs. If these modifications were not fulfilled, then welfare conditions might have been jeopardized. MDPI 2018-07-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6071294/ /pubmed/30037102 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani8070125 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hernandez, Adalinda
Berg, Charlotte
Westin, Rebecka
Galina, Carlos
Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions
title Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions
title_full Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions
title_fullStr Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions
title_full_unstemmed Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions
title_short Seasonal Differences in Animal Welfare Assessment of Family Farming Dual-Purpose Cattle Raised under Tropical Conditions
title_sort seasonal differences in animal welfare assessment of family farming dual-purpose cattle raised under tropical conditions
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6071294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30037102
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani8070125
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