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Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms

Animal welfare is a multiparameteral concept that encompasses the physical and mental health of animals and includes various aspects such as physical wellbeing, absence of hunger and thirst, and ability to express motivated behavior, to which farmers usually attach different importance. The objectiv...

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Autores principales: Nadlučnik, Eva, Golinar Oven, Irena, Tomažič, Iztok, Plut, Jan, Dovč, Alenka, Štukelj, Marina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9558291/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36246308
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1010791
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author Nadlučnik, Eva
Golinar Oven, Irena
Tomažič, Iztok
Plut, Jan
Dovč, Alenka
Štukelj, Marina
author_facet Nadlučnik, Eva
Golinar Oven, Irena
Tomažič, Iztok
Plut, Jan
Dovč, Alenka
Štukelj, Marina
author_sort Nadlučnik, Eva
collection PubMed
description Animal welfare is a multiparameteral concept that encompasses the physical and mental health of animals and includes various aspects such as physical wellbeing, absence of hunger and thirst, and ability to express motivated behavior, to which farmers usually attach different importance. The objectives of this study were to evaluate animal welfare on Slovenian commercial pig farms, to determine whether farmers' perceived importance of animal welfare differ from actual animal welfare on farms and to determine, if farmer's age, gender, their level of education and participation in vocational training have an influence. For that purpose, we created an Animal Welfare Protocol/Questionnaire for Pig Farms (AWQ/P-P) that assessed several parameters of animal welfare: (1) general status, (2) animal behavior, (3) health status, (4) living conditions, and (5) environmental conditions. Each parameter included at least five observation points and was scored on a 5-point scale. The same observation points were used to measure farmers' perceived importance of animal welfare and for observational assessment. Consequently, we were able to compare both statistically. Farmers from 14 (N = 14) large Slovenian pig farms participated in the study. Results show that farmers rate all parameters of animal welfare very highly. For them, animal health status is the most important, and environmental conditions are the least important factors for animal welfare. Observational inspections yielded significantly lower scores for animal welfare conditions than those obtained from farmer ratings. The highest correlations between farmers' perceptions and observational inspections were found for the parameters of animal behavior and environmental conditions. The results of this study also suggest that vocational training is a significant variable in increasing levels of pig welfare. Age, gender, and education level are not significant variables, however, farms led by older male farmers with lower level of education but involved in vocational training from different sources had slightly better welfare on the farm. This should be further investigated before making conclusions, due to our small sample size. The significance of the study is to identify deficiencies in pig welfare as perceived by farmers and consequently improve pig welfare.
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spelling pubmed-95582912022-10-14 Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms Nadlučnik, Eva Golinar Oven, Irena Tomažič, Iztok Plut, Jan Dovč, Alenka Štukelj, Marina Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Animal welfare is a multiparameteral concept that encompasses the physical and mental health of animals and includes various aspects such as physical wellbeing, absence of hunger and thirst, and ability to express motivated behavior, to which farmers usually attach different importance. The objectives of this study were to evaluate animal welfare on Slovenian commercial pig farms, to determine whether farmers' perceived importance of animal welfare differ from actual animal welfare on farms and to determine, if farmer's age, gender, their level of education and participation in vocational training have an influence. For that purpose, we created an Animal Welfare Protocol/Questionnaire for Pig Farms (AWQ/P-P) that assessed several parameters of animal welfare: (1) general status, (2) animal behavior, (3) health status, (4) living conditions, and (5) environmental conditions. Each parameter included at least five observation points and was scored on a 5-point scale. The same observation points were used to measure farmers' perceived importance of animal welfare and for observational assessment. Consequently, we were able to compare both statistically. Farmers from 14 (N = 14) large Slovenian pig farms participated in the study. Results show that farmers rate all parameters of animal welfare very highly. For them, animal health status is the most important, and environmental conditions are the least important factors for animal welfare. Observational inspections yielded significantly lower scores for animal welfare conditions than those obtained from farmer ratings. The highest correlations between farmers' perceptions and observational inspections were found for the parameters of animal behavior and environmental conditions. The results of this study also suggest that vocational training is a significant variable in increasing levels of pig welfare. Age, gender, and education level are not significant variables, however, farms led by older male farmers with lower level of education but involved in vocational training from different sources had slightly better welfare on the farm. This should be further investigated before making conclusions, due to our small sample size. The significance of the study is to identify deficiencies in pig welfare as perceived by farmers and consequently improve pig welfare. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9558291/ /pubmed/36246308 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1010791 Text en Copyright © 2022 Nadlučnik, Golinar Oven, Tomažič, Plut, Dovč and Štukelj. 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
Nadlučnik, Eva
Golinar Oven, Irena
Tomažič, Iztok
Plut, Jan
Dovč, Alenka
Štukelj, Marina
Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
title Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
title_full Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
title_fullStr Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
title_full_unstemmed Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
title_short Discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
title_sort discrepancies between farmers' perceptions and actual animal welfare conditions on commercial pig farms
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9558291/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36246308
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1010791
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