Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM Bodil Højlund Nielsen, Alessandra Angelucci, Alessandra Scalvenzi, Björn Forkman, Francesca Fusi, Frank Tuyttens, Hans Houe, Harry Blokhuis, Jan Tind Sørensen, Janne Rothmann, et al. To cite this version: Bodil Højlund Nielsen, Alessandra Angelucci, Alessandra Scalvenzi, Björn Forkman, Francesca Fusi, et al.. Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM. [Other] 2014, 340 p. hal-02798024 HAL Id: hal-02798024 https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02798024 Submitted on 5 Jun 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. EXTERNAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM Bodil Højlund Nielsen1, Alessandra Angelucci2, Alessandra Scalvenzi2, Björn Forkman3, Francesca Fusi2, Frank Tuyttens4, Hans Houe3, Harry Blokhuis5, Jan Tind Sørensen1, Janne Rothmann1, Lindsay Matthews6, Luc Mounier7,8, Luigi Bertocchi2, Marie-Madeleine Richard7,8, Matteo Donati2, Per Peetz Nielsen5, Romolo Salini6, Sophie de Graaf4, Sophie Hild7,8, Stefano Messori6, Søren Saxmose Nielsen3, Valentina Lorenzi2, Xavier Boivin7,8 & Peter T. Thomsen1 1: Aarhus University, Department of Animal Science, P. O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark; 2: Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell’Emilia Romagna “Bruno Ubertini” – Centro di Referenza Nazionale per il Benessere Animale, Via Bianchi 9, 25124 Brescia, Italy; 3: University of Copenhagen, Department of large Animal Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Science, Grønnegårdsvej 8, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark; 4: Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, Animal Sciences Unit, Farm Animal Welfare & Behaviour Research Group, Scheldeweg 68, 9090 Melle, Belgium; 5: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Environment and Health, Uppsala, Sweden; 6: Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise "G. Caporale", Campo Boario 64100, Teramo (TE), Italy; 7: Université de Lyon, VetAgro Sup, UMR1213 Herbivores F-69280 Marcy L’Etoile, France; 8: INRA, UMR1213 Herbivores, F-63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France. ABSTRACT The overall aim of the project was to evaluate the use of routinely collected animal based measures (ABMs) for an evaluation of the overall animal welfare in dairy cow herds. ABMs being able to detect worst adverse effects in relation to animal welfare were identified based on the existing literature and expert opinion. The validity and robustness of these ABMs were evaluated and cow mortality, somatic cell count and lameness were selected for further study. A number of factors of variation were selected using expert opinion and used in a model to collate routinely collected data from Italy, Belgium and Denmark on selected ABMs. The routinely collected data was uploaded to the Data Collection Framework platform at EFSA and the data management in this process was evaluated. Five research datasets from Italy, Belgium, Denmark and France including information on ABMs as well as a measure of ’overall animal welfare’ at herd level were analysed to evaluate the association between the ABMs (individually or in combination) and overall welfare. The measure of ’overall animal welfare’ were not the same for all datasets. Except from the Italian data, the association between the ABMs and the different overall welfare measures were generally weak. Likewise, combining more than one ABM only improved the prediction of the overall welfare in the Italian dataset. Analyses of the other datasets could not confirm this finding. Finally, suggestions for future recordings of ABMs not routinely collected at the moment were given with a special focus on lameness. In conclusion, the relationship between selected ABMs and overall welfare at the herd level is complex and still not sufficiently studied. Therefore, a system using routinely collected ABMs to predict the overall welfare at herd level in dairy herds does not seem realistic based on the results from the present study. © Copyright of the authors, 2014 Any enquiries related to this output should be addressed to [email protected] Available online: www.efsa.europa.eu/publications © European Food Safety Authority, 2014 ANIBAM – Final Report Submitted June 12th, 2014 KEY WORDS Dairy cow; animal based measure; animal welfare DISCLAIMER The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s). In accordance with Article 36 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, this task has been carried out exclusively by the author(s) in the context of a grant agreement between the European Food Safety Authority and the author(s). The present document is published complying with the transparency principle to which the Authority is subject. It cannot be considered as an output adopted by the Authority. The European Food Safety Authority reserves its rights, view and position as regards the issues addressed and the conclusions reached in the present document, without prejudice to the rights of the authors. Question No EFSA-Q-2012-00724. EFSA supporting publication 2014: EN-659 2 The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s). In accordance with Article 36 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, this task has been carried out exclusively by the author(s) in the context of a grant agreement between the European Food Safety Authority and the author(s). The present document is published complying with the transparency principle to which the Authority is subject. It cannot be considered as an output adopted by the Authority. The European Food Safety Authority reserves its rights, view and position as regards the issues addressed and the conclusions reached in the present document, without prejudice to the rights of the authors. ANIBAM – Final Report Submitted June 12th, 2014 SUMMARY The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) aims to establish a practical and validated basis for data collection of animal based measures (ABMs) for farmed animal species and consequent quantitative risk assessment of the welfare of target populations. Through a series of six integrated objectives this project evaluated the possibility to use routinely collected ABMs to predict the overall welfare status at herd level in dairy cow herds. In Objective 1, a list of adverse effects was identified based on the results presented in previous EFSA reports. In a questionnaire survey, an expert panel was asked to rate the overall impact of the adverse effects considering severity as well as herd prevalence. Based on this, ‘mortality – unassisted’, ‘mortality – euthanised’, ‘foot disorders’, ‘leg injuries’, ‘behavioural disruption – flooring’, ‘behavioural disruption – rest’, ‘behavioural disruption – feeding’ (cubicles only) and ‘exhaustion’ were identified as the worst adverse effects (WAEs). A comprehensive list of ABMs that could potentially be used to detect the WAEs was then identified from the EFSA reports by selecting all ABMs reported to be associated with the WAEs. Another expert panel comprising researchers, producer organisation representatives, retailers, practising veterinarians, competent authorities, and NGOs from nine EU countries was then asked to provide information regarding whether these ABMs were routinely collected in their country. Finally, the resulting list of ABMs already collected in the field was subjected to an expert elicitation procedure where experts were asked to identify the linkages between the ABMs and the WAEs and also any linkages between the WAEs. Using this information together with the survey responses on the availability of ABMs routinely collected in the field and suitability for detecting WAEs, the consortium agreed to recommend the following ABMs for further investigations: ‘Numbers of deaths (unassisted and euthanised)’, ‘evidence of mastitis’ (somatic cell count (SCC)), ‘numbers of foot lesions’, ‘measures of lameness’, and ‘numbers of leg lesions/swellings’. In Objective 2, the validity and robustness of the ABMs selected in Objective 1 were evaluated. The evaluation was performed through a) a systematic literature review of validity and robustness of the ABMs, b) a description of databases available to the members of the project consortium including information on relevant ABMs and c) analyses of sensitivity and specificity of the ABMs in detecting the WAEs in these databases. In order to calculate the sensitivity and specificity, cut-offs were defined for each ABM and WAE. The description of the ABMs and the definition of the cut-offs were based on discussions among consortium members combined with information achieved from the description of the available data. Emphasis was put on feasibility in terms of data availability in the field. Three ABMs were recommended for further investigations: 1) ‘Number of deaths’ as a direct measure of ‘mortality’. Though it was not significantly correlated to any of the other WAEs in the data analysis, it was recommended as useful because data on mortality was deemed