Scientific Opinion on the use of animal-based measures to assess welfare of dairy cows
Animal-based measures, identified on the basis of scientific evidence, can be effectively used in the evaluation of the welfare of dairy cattle on farm in relation to laws, codes of practice, quality assurance schemes and management. Some of these measures are also appropriate for ante-mortem inspection and there are additional post-mortem animal-based measures which can […]
Test-retest reliability of the Welfare Quality® animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs
The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and test-retest reliability of the Welfare Quality® Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Growing Pigs. Twenty-three German pig farms were visited repeatedly by the same trained observers; each farm being visited six times during two fattening periods. The entire protocol assessment was carried out during each […]
Welfare assessment in traditional mountain dairy farms: above and beyond resource-based measures
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, […]