A weak point analysis of welfare in Danish dairy herds using two different welfare assessment systems

Identifying areas of animal welfare concern in different production stages in Danish pig herds using the Danish Animal Welfare Index (DAWIN)

Animal welfare is of increasing public interest, and the pig industry in particular is subject to much attention. The aim of this study was to identify and compare areas of animal welfare concern for commercial pigs in four different production stages: (1) gestating sows and gilts; (2) lactating sows; (3) piglets; and (4) weaner-to-finisher pigs. One welfare assessment protocol was developed for each stage, comprising of between 20 and 29 animal welfare measures including resource-, management- and animal-based ones. Twenty-one Danish farms were visited once between January 2015 and February 2016 in a cross-sectional design. Experts (n = 26; advisors, scientists and animal welfare controllers) assessed the severity of the outcome measures. This was combined with the on-farm prevalence of each measure and the outcome was used to calculate areas of concern, defined as measures where the median of all farms fell below the value defined as 'acceptable welfare.' Between five and seven areas of concern were identified for each production stage. With the exception of carpal lesions in piglets, all areas of concern were resource- and management-based and mainly related to housing, with inadequate available space and the floor type in the resting area being overall concerns across all production stages. This means that animal-based measures were largely unaffected by perceived deficits in resource-based measures. Great variation existed for the majority of measures identified as areas of concern, demonstrating that achieving a high welfare score is possible in the Danish system.

Benchmarking Farm Animal Welfare-A Novel Tool for Cross-Country Comparison Applied to Pig Production and Pork Consumption

Simple Summary

In many countries, levels of animal welfare are driven by both national legislation and animal welfare labels. In order to assess what is being achieved at the national level, we developed a Benchmarking tool that combined information about legislation, welfare labels, market-shares, and expected welfare consequences. This tool was presented here and applied to pig production and pork consumption in five European countries. To assess how well a country is faring in terms of pig welfare, it was important not only to look at national pork production but also at the sourcing of pork by retailers and consumers since not all pork consumed in a country is produced domestically. Of the five countries studied, the three that have a large, export-oriented pig production industry—the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark—had lower welfare levels in their production than the two—UK and Sweden—that had smaller pig production, mainly serving the home market. However, since the UK and Sweden also imported pork for retail and consumption from countries with lower levels of welfare, the contrast in welfare levels was smaller in consumption than in production.

Abstract

A pluralist approach to farm animal welfare, combining animal welfare legislation with market-driven initiatives, has developed in many countries. To enable cross-country comparisons of pig welfare, a number of welfare dimensions, covering the features typically modified in legislative and market-driven welfare initiatives aimed at pig production, were defined. Five academic welfare experts valued the different welfare states within each dimension on a 0–10 scale, then assessed the relative contribution of each dimension to overall welfare on a 1–5 scale. By combining these values and weights with an inventory of pig welfare initiatives in five countries, the additional welfare generated by each initiative was calculated. Together with information on the national coverage of each initiative, the Benchmark value for each country’s production and consumption of pork could be calculated on a scale from 0 to 100. Two (Sweden and the UK) had a much higher Benchmark value than the rest. However, there was a drop in the Benchmark for consumption in Sweden and the UK (indicating imports from countries with lower-Benchmark values for production). Even though the experts differed in the values and weights ascribed to different initiatives, they were largely in agreement in their ranking of the countries.