van Eerdenburg Frank J C M, Hof Tessa, Doeve Benthe, Ravesloot Lars, Zeinstra Elly C, Nordquist Rebecca E, van der Staay Franz Josef
Department of Population Health Sciences, Division of Farm animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Yalelaan 7, 3584 CL Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Behaviour and Welfare Group, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Yalelaan 7, 3584 CL Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Mar 15;11(3):821. doi: 10.3390/ani11030821.
Many protocols have been developed to assess farm animal welfare. However, the validity of these protocols is still subject to debate. The present study aimed to compare nine welfare assessment protocols, namely: (1) Welfare Quality (WQ), (2) a modified version of Welfare Quality (WQ Mod), which has a better discriminative power, (3) WelzijnsWijzer (Welfare Indicator; WW), (4) a new Welfare Monitor (WM), (5) Continue Welzijns Monitor (Continuous Welfare Monitor; CWM), (6) KoeKompas (Cow Compass; KK), (7) Cow Comfort Scoring System (CCSS), (8) Stall Standing Index (SSI) and (9) a Welfare Index (WI Tuyttens). In addition, a simple welfare estimation by veterinarians (Estimate vets, EV) was added. Rank correlation coefficients were calculated between each of the welfare assessment protocol scores and mean hair cortisol concentrations from 10 cows at 58 dairy farms spread over the Netherlands. Because it has been suggested that the hair cortisol level is related to stress, experienced over a long period of time, we expected a negative correlation between cortisol and the result of the welfare protocol scores. Only the simple welfare estimation by veterinarians (EV) (ρ = -0.28) had a poor, but significant, negative correlation with hair cortisol. This correlations, however, failed to reach significance after correction of -values for multiple correlations. Most of the results of the different welfare assessment protocols had a poor, fair or strong positive correlation with each other, supporting the notion that they measure something similar. Additional analyses revealed that the modified Welfare Quality protocol parameters housing (ρ = -0.30), the new Welfare Monitor (WM) parameter health (ρ = -0.33), and milk yield (ρ = -0.33) showed negative correlations with cortisol. We conclude that because only five out of all the parameter scores from the welfare assessment protocols showed a negative, albeit weak, correlation with cortisol, hair cortisol levels may not provide a long term indicator for stress in dairy cattle, or alternatively, that the protocols might not yield valid indices for cow welfare.
已经制定了许多方案来评估农场动物的福利。然而，这些方案的有效性仍存在争议。本研究旨在比较九种福利评估方案，即：（1）福利质量（WQ），（2）福利质量的修订版（WQ Mod），其具有更好的区分能力，（3）福利指标（WW），（4）一种新的福利监测器（WM），（5）持续福利监测器（CWM），（6）奶牛指南针（KK），（7）奶牛舒适度评分系统（CCSS），（8）畜栏站立指数（SSI）和（9）福利指数（WI Tuyttens）。此外，还增加了兽医的简单福利评估（估计兽医，EV）。计算了荷兰58个奶牛场中10头奶牛的每种福利评估方案得分与平均毛发皮质醇浓度之间的等级相关系数。因为有人认为毛发皮质醇水平与长期经历的应激有关，所以我们预期皮质醇与福利方案得分结果之间呈负相关。只有兽医的简单福利评估（EV）（ρ = -0.28）与毛发皮质醇呈弱但显著的负相关。然而，在对多重相关性的p值进行校正后，这种相关性未达到显著水平。不同福利评估方案的大多数结果彼此之间呈弱、中等或强正相关，这支持了它们测量的是相似内容的观点。进一步分析表明，修订后的福利质量方案参数住房（ρ = -0.30）、新的福利监测器（WM）参数健康（ρ = -0.33）和产奶量（ρ = -0.33）与皮质醇呈负相关。我们得出结论，由于福利评估方案的所有参数得分中只有五个与皮质醇呈负相关，尽管较弱，所以毛发皮质醇水平可能无法为奶牛的应激提供长期指标，或者说这些方案可能无法产生有效的奶牛福利指数。
Zotero 插件