Survey on animal welfare in 943 Italian dairy farms (original) (raw)

2016, Italian Journal of Food Safety

The final results of a survey on welfare of dairy cows in 7 Italian Regions are presented. The study has been performed on 943 farms in southern and central Italy to highlight critical and strong points concerning animal welfare in dairy systems, by using direct and indirect criteria. To assess animal welfare, a check-list based on 303 parameters has been used; indirect criteria have been organized in 5 general areas concerning “Farm management”, “Farming and housing systems”, “Environment”, “Feeding”, “Health and hygiene”; other resource-based criteria were considered in 5 specific areasfor the different productive categories (lactating cows, dry cows, pregnant heifers, cows comeback, calves up to 8 weeks and calves between 8 weeks and 6 months); finally, an “Indicators” section focusedon animal based criteria. Parameters have been valued as “conforming” or “not conforming” on the basis of the current lesgislation on animal welfare, and in the other cases by the use of a semi-quant...

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