Animal Welfare Assessment in Cattle Farms

摘要

Different methodologies to evaluate animal welfare in cattle farms were proposed in last years. An Italian research team has recently developed a new methodology to assess animal welfare in dairy and beef cattle farms. The system called FWI (Farm Welfare Index, Italian letters IBA) is based on a specific check list for each different category of animal. The check list data are elaborated in order to give a farm score on the basis of limited and objective parameters to be recorded during the farm visit. The methodology refers to the well known on-farm index systems, such as the Austrian ANI (Animal Needs Index) providing the general framework of the methodology to be applied on cattle welfare assessment, relying mostly on technical parameters experimentally tested by specific researches, farmer's experience, advisor's experience and by the legislation in force. So far the 213 assessed farms (172 dairy farms e41 beef farms) have been scored according to the FWI methodology by a total score on generalfarm inputs and by partial scores referring to the housing systems used for different cattle categories; in addition calves non conformity are reported. At the end of the process, every farm is classified by the total FWI score. The index can allocate the farm in one of the 6 different classes with an increasing level of welfare from 1 to 6.