The Relation between Hair-Cortisol Concentration and Various Welfare Assessments of Dutch Dairy Farms

Eerdenburg, F.J.C.M. van; Hof, Tessa; Doeve, Benthe; Ravesloot, Lars; Zeinstra, E.; Nordquist, Rebecca E.; Staay, Franz Josef van der

doi:10.3390/ani11030821

Cited by 14 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Hence, we recommend using the simplest formula for WI (i.e., without the Cm term, which is assumed to equal one). The simplification of the original WQ protocol into our WI has recently been shown to result in a better match with five other (i.e., non-WQ based) dairy herd welfare assessment metrics used in the Netherlands and with the consensus herd welfare score given by at least five dairy cattle veterinarians that visited the farms on a regular basis (40). These findings thus provide some support for an improved concurrent and consensus validity, respectively, of the WI as compared to the original WQ overall categorization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Expert Elicitation to Abridge the Welfare Quality® Protocol for Monitoring the Most Adverse Dairy Cattle Welfare Impairments

et al. 2021

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The Welfare Quality® consortium has developed and proposed standard protocols for monitoring farm animal welfare. The uptake of the dairy cattle protocol has been below expectation, however, and it has been criticized for the variable quality of the welfare measures and for a limited number of measures having a disproportionally large effect on the integrated welfare categorization. Aiming for a wide uptake by the milk industry, we revised and simplified the Welfare Quality® protocol into a user-friendly tool for cost- and time-efficient on-farm monitoring of dairy cattle welfare with a minimal number of key animal-based measures that are aggregated into a continuous (and thus discriminative) welfare index (WI). The inevitable subjective decisions were based upon expert opinion, as considerable expertise about cattle welfare issues and about the interpretation, importance, and validity of the welfare measures was deemed essential. The WI is calculated as the sum of the severity score (i.e., how severely a welfare problem affects cow welfare) multiplied with the herd prevalence for each measure. The selection of measures (lameness, leanness, mortality, hairless patches, lesions/swellings, somatic cell count) and their severity scores were based on expert surveys (14–17 trained users of the Welfare Quality® cattle protocol). The prevalence of these welfare measures was assessed in 491 European herds. Experts allocated a welfare score (from 0 to 100) to 12 focus herds for which the prevalence of each welfare measure was benchmarked against all 491 herds. Quadratic models indicated a high correspondence between these subjective scores and the WI (R2 = 0.91). The WI allows both numerical (0–100) as a qualitative (“not classified” to “excellent”) evaluation of welfare. Although it is sensitive to those welfare issues that most adversely affect cattle welfare (as identified by EFSA), the WI should be accompanied with a disclaimer that lists adverse or favorable effects that cannot be detected adequately by the current selection of measures.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Expert Elicitation to Abridge the Welfare Quality® Protocol for Monitoring the Most Adverse Dairy Cattle Welfare Impairments

et al. 2021

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“…McGreevy et al, 2018), and the Quality of Life (e.g., Green and Mellor, 2011), approaching animal welfare from different points of view (see Webster, 2016). Unfortunately, the correlation between assessment tools derived from these (and other) concepts (e.g., Andreasen et al, 2013) and their consistency over time may be weak (Knierim and Winckler, 2009;van Eerdenburg et al, 2021), indicating the necessity for more research to derive well validated and useful welfare assessment tools.…”

Section: Assessing Animal Welfare Based On Dawconmentioning

confidence: 99%

A dynamic concept of animal welfare: The role of appetitive and adverse internal and external factors and the animal’s ability to adapt to them

2022

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Animal welfare is a multifaceted issue that can be approached from different viewpoints, depending on human interests, ethical assumptions, and culture. To properly assess, safeguard and promote animal welfare, concepts are needed to serve as guidelines in any context the animal is kept in. Several different welfare concepts have been developed during the last half decade. The Five Freedoms concept has provided the basis for developing animal welfare assessment to date, and the Five Domains concept has guided those responsible for safeguarding animal welfare, while the Quality of Life concept focuses on how the individual perceives its own welfare state. This study proposes a modified and extended version of an earlier animal welfare concept - the Dynamic Animal Welfare Concept (DAWCon). Based on the adaptability of the animal, and taking the importance of positive emotional states and the dynamic nature of animal welfare into account, an individual animal is likely in a positive welfare state when it is mentally and physically capable and possesses the ability and opportunity to react adequately to sporadic or lasting appetitive and adverse internal and external stimuli, events, and conditions. Adequate reactions are elements of an animal’s normal behavior. They allow the animal to cope with and adapt to the demands of the (prevailing) environmental circumstances, enabling it to reach a state that it perceives as positive, i.e., that evokes positive emotions. This paper describes the role of internal as well as external factors in influencing welfare, each of which exerts their effects in a sporadic or lasting manner. Behavior is highlighted as a crucial read-out parameter. As most animals under human care are selected for certain traits that may affect their behavioral repertoire it is crucial to have thorough ethograms, i.e., a catalogue of specific behaviors of the species/strain/breed under study. DAWCon highlights aspects that need to be addressed when assessing welfare and may stimulate future research questions.

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“…Previous studies on cattle have shown increased levels of hair cortisol in clinically compromised cows and cows subjected to heat stress (Burnett et al, 2015;Ghassemi Nejad et al, 2017). However, only weak associations between the results of welfare assessments and HCC in dairy cows have been observed at the herd level (van Eerdenburg et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Unraveling the Complexity to Observe Associations Between Welfare Indicators and Hair Cortisol Concentration in Dairy Calves

et al. 2021

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Using levels of the stress hormone cortisol as an indicator for welfare is a common, but debated practice. In this observational study, hair cortisol concentration (HCC) of samples from 196 dairy calves from 7 to 302 days of age collected from 12 Swedish farms was determined using a commercially available ELISA. An assessment of animal welfare, assessed using animal-based indicators, was performed on the day of sampling. First, methodological factors with the potential to impact HCC and the effect of age were analyzed using generalized additive models. This revealed a significant peak in hair cortisol in young calves (around 50 days of age) and an association between fecal contamination of hair samples and the level of cortisol extracted. Second, associations between welfare indicators and HCC were explored using cluster analysis and regularized regression. The results show a complex pattern, possibly related to different coping styles of the calves, and indicators of poor welfare were associated with both increased and decreased hair cortisol levels. High cortisol levels were associated with potential indicators of competition, while low cortisol levels were associated with the signs of poor health or a poor environment. When running the regularized regression analysis without the contaminated hair samples and with the contaminated samples (including a contamination score), the results did not change, indicating that it may be possible to use a contamination score to correct for contamination.

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The Relation between Hair-Cortisol Concentration and Various Welfare Assessments of Dutch Dairy Farms

Cited by 14 publications

References 60 publications

Using Expert Elicitation to Abridge the Welfare Quality® Protocol for Monitoring the Most Adverse Dairy Cattle Welfare Impairments

Using Expert Elicitation to Abridge the Welfare Quality® Protocol for Monitoring the Most Adverse Dairy Cattle Welfare Impairments

A dynamic concept of animal welfare: The role of appetitive and adverse internal and external factors and the animal’s ability to adapt to them

Unraveling the Complexity to Observe Associations Between Welfare Indicators and Hair Cortisol Concentration in Dairy Calves

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