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Marie Haskell presents Poster 32 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 4: Assessing health status of groups of animals in relation to welfare
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Poster 32
QUALITY AND RELIABILITY OF FARMER’S RECORDS OF HEALTH IN
ORGANIC AND NON-ORGANIC DAIRY COW HERDS IN GREAT
BRITAIN
M.J. Haskell, M. Jack, F.M. Langford, L. Sherwood, A.B. Lawrence, K.M.D. Rutherford
Sustainable Livestock Systems Group, Scottish Agricultural College, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG,
UK
The records that farmers make on the ocurrence and treatment of disease in individual animals are
often used as part of welfare assessment schemes. However, we need to determine whether farmerproduced
health records are an accurate representation of levels of disease on the farm. As part of a
study comparing the health and welfare of cows on forty organic and forty non-organic farms in
Great Britain, farmer health records were collected for a standardised year (2004).
Thirty-four organic and thirty-three non-organic farms had health records available for copying.
The health records proved to be very variable in the detail and consistency of the information
recorded. Based on the amount of detail provided, the records were rated from good to poor. For
organic farms, 5 were rated as good, 28 as fair and 1 as poor. For the non-organic farms this was 5,
20 and 8 respectively. The number of cases of mastitis and the number of repeated cases of mastitis
were calculated using good and fair farm records. The results showed that there were more
treatments for mastitis made on non-organic farms than on organic farms (t44=-3.87, p0.05). No effect of any of the farm management variables
fitted could be detected.
The national regulations stipulate that farmers must record antibiotic use, and it appears that many
limit their recording to this type of treatment. Other treatments, such as alternative or homeopathic
treatments for mastitis or remedial foot-trimming for lameness are not recorded consistently across
farms.
We conclude that, in general, dairy farmers’ health records in the UK do not always provide a
reliable estimate of disease levels.
Contact information: Marie Haskell or email marie.haskell@sac.ac.uk
Complete address: Sustainable Livestock Systems Group, Scottish Agricultural College, West Mains
Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK
Species: Dairy cattle