Minnig Adrian, Zufferey Romane, Thomann Beat, Zwygart Sibylle, Keil Nina, Schüpbach-Regula Gertraud, Miserez Raymond, Stucki Dimitri, Zanolari Patrik
Clinic for Ruminants, Vetsuisse-Faculty, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Veterinary Public Health Institute, Vetsuisse-Faculty, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Nov 2;11(11):3138. doi: 10.3390/ani11113138.
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.
本综述描述了与山羊福利指标科学文献相关的当前知识状态。我们的目的是概述用于农场福利评估的基于动物的指标。我们进行了文献检索，通过标题、摘要和全文筛选提取了96篇相关文章。在这些文章中，相似的指标被汇总，总共得出32个福利指标，其中一些指标在多篇文章中被提及，另一些仅在一篇文章中出现。我们讨论了包含这些指标的一组三个既定评估方案，以及在多篇文章中涵盖的所有单个指标。作为单个指标，我们确定了跛行、体况评分（BCS）、定性行为评估（QBA）和人畜关系（HAR）测试，有大量证据表明它们具有足够的有效性来评估山羊的福利。许多指标（如被毛状况）的研究强度较低，但已成功用于福利评估。对于一些指标（如遗忘、躺卧行为），我们强调未来研究需要进一步验证它们或优化它们在农场福利评估中的使用。此外，进一步的调查需要纳入羔羊、公羊、肉用和毛用山羊，以及粗放饲养的山羊，因为文献主要关注集约化生产系统中的奶山羊。
