Acceptance and Feasibility of a Guideline for the Animal Welfare Assessment of Fattening Pigs from Farmers’ Point of View

摘要

The German Association for Technology and Structures in Agriculture has published the guide “Animal Welfare Indicators: Practical Guide—Pigs”, which is intended to help farmers to evaluate the welfare of pigs. Crucial for the acceptance of the guide by farmers is a high degree of feasibility of the contained indicators as well as the proposed procedure for recording them. To evaluate this, 40 farmers keeping fattening pigs were interviewed. The result is that, apart from faecal soiling and tail length, all the other eleven indicators are accepted for the assessment of fattening pig welfare by a majority of the interviewed farmers (between 57.5% and 90% acceptance per indicator). The feasibility of the individual indicators is overall assessed as positive. However, the study also shows a need for revision of the guide and makes suggestions for its improvement.