TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a simplified on-farm animal health and welfare benchmarking tool for pig herds
AU - Wadepohl, K
AU - Blaha, T
AU - Van Gompel, L
AU - Duarte, A S R
AU - Nielsen, C L
AU - Saatkamp, H
AU - Wagenaar, J A
AU - Meemken, D
AU - Graveland, H
AU - Schmitt, H
AU - Heederik, D
AU - Luiken, R E C
AU - Mevius, D
AU - van Essen, A
AU - Gonzalez-Zorn, B
AU - Moyano, G
AU - Saunders, P
AU - Chauvin, C
AU - David, J
AU - Battisti, A
AU - Caprioli, A
AU - Dewulf, J
AU - Brandt, M
AU - Aarestrup, F
AU - Hald, T
AU - Wasyl, D
AU - Skarzynska, M
AU - Zajac, M
AU - Daskalov, H
AU - Staerk, K
AU - Grp, EFFORT
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Animal health and welfare have become topics of increasing public
interest. Especially improvements in the health and welfare of
food-producing animals are currently being intensively researched. To be
able to routinely assess the quality of health and welfare of individual
pig herds for benchmarking purposes in a simple and robust way, a short
and easy to use measuring tool is needed.
Since the very elaborate assessment tools of the Welfare Quality (R)
(WQ) project (FOOD-CT-2004-506508) are too time-consuming for an
assessment during a regular veterinary herd visit, easy to record
indicators were targetly selected and supplemented by new elements in
order to combine a number of measurements in one indicator, using the
theoretical concept of iceberg indicators, which are thought to trigger
further scrutiny into the management of pig herds that reveal potential
deficiencies.
The thus created simplified Herd Health and Welfare Index (HHWI) shows a
theoretical range of 10 (very good) to a maximum of 30 (very bad) index
points. It has been demonstrated that it can be used as an animal
welfare measurement tool to compare herds within a group of pig herds
that are measured by the same set of criteria. The HHWI has proven to be
a rough, semi-quantitative, and a less elaborate tool than, for example,
the complete protocol of the WQ-project. All in all, the HHWI has a
broader range of application possibilities than the WQ-protocol due to
its reduced number of criteria for the assessment of the health and
welfare status of pig herds.
AB - Animal health and welfare have become topics of increasing public
interest. Especially improvements in the health and welfare of
food-producing animals are currently being intensively researched. To be
able to routinely assess the quality of health and welfare of individual
pig herds for benchmarking purposes in a simple and robust way, a short
and easy to use measuring tool is needed.
Since the very elaborate assessment tools of the Welfare Quality (R)
(WQ) project (FOOD-CT-2004-506508) are too time-consuming for an
assessment during a regular veterinary herd visit, easy to record
indicators were targetly selected and supplemented by new elements in
order to combine a number of measurements in one indicator, using the
theoretical concept of iceberg indicators, which are thought to trigger
further scrutiny into the management of pig herds that reveal potential
deficiencies.
The thus created simplified Herd Health and Welfare Index (HHWI) shows a
theoretical range of 10 (very good) to a maximum of 30 (very bad) index
points. It has been demonstrated that it can be used as an animal
welfare measurement tool to compare herds within a group of pig herds
that are measured by the same set of criteria. The HHWI has proven to be
a rough, semi-quantitative, and a less elaborate tool than, for example,
the complete protocol of the WQ-project. All in all, the HHWI has a
broader range of application possibilities than the WQ-protocol due to
its reduced number of criteria for the assessment of the health and
welfare status of pig herds.
KW - animal health and welfare index (HHWI)
KW - on-farm assessment of animalwelfare
KW - benchmarking of the quality of life of pigs per herd
KW - iceberg indicators fortriggering further improvement actions
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/106ce01c-78ea-3040-91a1-d8b5abd6adef/
U2 - 10.2376/0005-9366-18088
DO - 10.2376/0005-9366-18088
M3 - Article
SN - 0005-9366
VL - 132
SP - 504
EP - 512
JO - Berliner und Munchener Tierarztliche Wochenschrift
JF - Berliner und Munchener Tierarztliche Wochenschrift
IS - 11-12
ER -