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Isabelle Veissier presents Poster 51 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 5: Development and improvement of welfare assessment protocols
OVERALL ASSESSMENT OF ANIMAL WELFARE: VARIOUS
OBJECTIVES, VARIOUS METHODOLOGIES
I. Veissier 1 , R. Botreau 1,2
1 INRA, UR1213 Herbivores, Site de Theix, F-63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France
2 Institut de l’Elevage, BP18, F-31321 Castanet Tolosan, France
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Poster 51
This paper focuses on the choice of methods for assessing animal welfare on farms according to the
objective of the assessment.
An on-farm welfare assessment may be performed with a view of producing statistics (eg at
national level), identifying risk factors in epidemiological studies, highlighting problems on a farm
before advising the farmer on remedial solutions, checking that farms comply with requirements for
certified productions (eg Freedom foods) or legislation (EU directives for cross-compliance). An
overall assessment of animal welfare may also be necessary for choosing between alternatives
during the conception and evaluation of innovative systems.
Some assessment tools rely on design criteria (food, housing, management…) while other focus on
performance criteria (animals’ condition, health, behaviour, stress…). In general these tools cover
main welfare dimensions, eg good health, physical comfort, lack of stress, expression of behaviours
and the information is synthesised at farm, system, or population level.
The appropriateness of criteria and method to synthesise the information depends on the objective
of the welfare assessment:
- design OR performance criteria can be used to produce descriptive statistics (frequencies,
means, SD);
- epidemiological studies require design AND performance criteria, multivariate statistics can
help summarising information on performance criteria which can then be explained by
design criteria (regressions);
- advice to farmers require performance criteria to highlight problems AND design criteria to
find causes;
- checking compliance can be based on design OR performance criteria depending on the
scheme, a mathematical model for the overall assessment is necessary to take decisions (see
Botreau et al., WAFL2008);
- innovative systems should be checked with performance criteria, an overall assessment is
needed but it may not be compulsory to build a mathematical model for this exact purpose.
In any case, the objective of a welfare assessment need be set clearly before methods are decided.
Contact information: Isabelle Veissier or email veissier@clermont.inra.fr
Complete address: INRA, UR1213 Herbivores, Site de Theix, F-63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle,
France
Species: General