Stress Assessment in Small Ruminants Kept on City Farms in Southern Germany

Schilling, Anna‐Katarina; Reese, Sven; Palme, Rupert; Erhard, Michael; Wöhr, Anna-Caroline

doi:10.1080/10888705.2014.1000457

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The most suitable stress assessment for routine on-farm checks seems to be a behavioural observation [6,33]. For example, feeding or rumination behaviours have been suggested by experts [6] as good indicators of positive conditions in sheep [30].…”

Section: Behaviour Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Sheep

Zufferey

Minnig

Thomann

et al. 2021

Animals

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The value society assigns to animal welfare in agricultural productions is increasing, resulting in ever-enhancing methods to assess the well-being of farm animals. The aim of this study was to review the scientific literature to obtain an overview of the current knowledge on welfare assessments for sheep and to extract animal-based welfare indicators as well as welfare protocols with animal-based indicators. By title and abstract screening, we identified five protocols and 53 potential indicators from 55 references. Three out of the five protocols include animal-based as well as resource-based indicators. All of them were assessed as being practicable on-farm but lacking reliability. Some of the single indicators are endorsed by the literature and widely used in the field like assessment of behaviour, lameness or body condition score. Others (e.g., Faffa Malan Chart FAMACHA©, dag score or pain assessment) are regularly mentioned in the literature, but their reliability and usefulness are still subject of discussion. Several indicators, such as pruritic behaviour, eye condition, lying time or tooth loss are relatively new in the literature and still lack evidence for their validity and usefulness. This literature review serves as a starting point for the development of valid and practicable welfare protocols for sheep.

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Section: Behaviour Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Sheep

Zufferey

Minnig

Thomann

et al. 2021

Animals

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“…Abnormal oral behaviour [2,5] Chest girth [6] Dyspnoe, respiration rate (variability) [5,85] Exploratory behaviour [2,53] Heart rate (variability) [85][86][87] Ill-thrift/weight loss [47,88,89] Latency to display behaviour post-partum (goat kids) [53] Mortality, condemnation rates [65,88,89] Presence of ectoparasites [6] Pruritus [2,5] Stereotypies [59] Synchronisation of lying [53] Time spent lying (by a wall) [53] Vocalisation [2,59,85] More possible indicators for the assessment of goat welfare are listed in Table 2. These indicators are only mentioned sporadically in the literature and/or have not been validated and tested in the context of on-farm welfare assessment.…”

Section: Indicator Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Goats

Minnig

Zufferey

Thomann

et al. 2021

Animals

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This review describes the current state of knowledge relating to scientific literature on welfare indicators for goats. Our aim was to provide an overview of animal-based indicators for on-farm welfare assessments. We performed a literature search and extracted 96 relevant articles by title, abstract, and full-text screening. Out of these articles, similar indicators were aggregated to result in a total of 32 welfare indicators, some of which were covered in multiple articles, others in only a single one. We discuss a set of three established assessment protocols containing these indicators, as well as all individual indicators which were covered in more than one article. As single indicators, we identified lameness, body condition score (BCS), qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA), and human–animal relationship (HAR) tests with substantial evidence for sufficient validity to assess welfare in goats. A multitude of indicators (e.g., hair coat condition) was studied less intensively but was successfully used for welfare assessments. For some indicators (e.g., oblivion, lying behaviour), we highlight the need for future research to further validate them or to optimise their use in on-farm welfare assessments. Moreover, further investigations need to include kids, bucks, and meat and fibre goats, as well as extensively kept goats as the literature predominantly focuses on dairy goats in intensive production systems.

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Application of the laser methane detector for measurements in freely grazing goats: impact on animals' behaviour and methane emissions

Roessler

Schlecht

2021

Animal

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Stress Assessment in Small Ruminants Kept on City Farms in Southern Germany

Cited by 4 publications

References 19 publications

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Sheep

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Sheep

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Goats

Application of the laser methane detector for measurements in freely grazing goats: impact on animals' behaviour and methane emissions

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