Dairy animal welfare Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of medium-scale dairy stockpeople from Midlands Province- Zimbabwe’s medium-scale dairy farms

Abstract

Welfare of dairy animals and consequently their health and productivity is influenced by a number of factors such as the quality and quantity of supplement, health care given to animals, and stockpeople Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices on animal welfare. A lot of studies have been conducted to evaluate the influence of most of the above factors on welfare of dairy animals, but very little studies focused on the influence of stockpeople Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices on animal welfare. However, given the growing demand for milk and dairy products and the increasing global demand for animal products that are produced in an animal welfare friendly environment there is potential benefit of studying the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of stockpeople towards the welfare of dairy animals. Herein, a cross sectional study involving 93 stockpeople from the 31 medium-scale dairy farms in Midlands Province, Zimbabwe was conducted to determine their Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices on animal welfare. Results of this study revealed that 67% of the stockpeople could not define animal welfare and this was significantly associated with the stockperson’s level of education. Only 14% of the stockpeople interviewed always talked to dairy animals when handling them and this was significantly with gender of the stockperson (p < 0.001). About 20% of the stockpeople responded positively to touching the dairy animals when handling them and this was associated significantly with the stockperson’s gender (p = 0.005). On a more positive note when stockpeople were asked to respond to whipping of animals when driving them, about 90% of the stockpeople said they never whip animals when handling or driving them. It is recommended that further studies be done to find out better and more effective ways of teaching animal welfare concepts and practices. These approaches of teaching animal welfare to stockpeople should take into account the stockpeople’s cultural, religious and education backgrounds.