Validation of an animal welfare protocol on dairy goat farms

Abstract

The purpose was to validate animal welfare indicators through an animal welfare assessment protocol in goat milk
farms under different production systems in the northwest (NOA) of Argentina. The study included 6 extensive farms and 5
semi-extensive farms with daytime grazing and nighttime confinement and 1 with total confinement, located in the regions of
arid canyon and valleys (n=7, QyVA) and temperate valleys and rain forest (n=5, VTyY). The protocol was divided into two parts,
one based on the observation of the environment conditions, nutritional, sanitary and milking management, animal behavior
and human-animal relationship. The second was based on the inspection of 20 ±5 goats in milking, recording the prevalence of
body condition, cleanliness degree,clinical signs and hoof trimming and dehorning. Each parameter received a partial score to
be summed to obtain the final total score, where those parameters observed directly by the evaluators were emphasized over those
recorded through the producer's report. The protocol was feasible since the implementation time was less than 2 hours and the
costs were low. The final average score of the farms was 64.4±17.4%, over the final optimum score, reaching the maximum in the
2
category of prevalence of individual clinical signs (87.2%) and the minimum in social interaction and contributions to wellbeing (28.1%). When analyzing by category of well-being, differences were only found between the extensive and semi-extensive
systems regarding environment conditions and comfort (X
2
4.3; p< 0.04) and environment and hygiene (X
2
7.0; p< 0.008),
where a greater number of semi-extensive systems exceeded the average score of the total farms compared to the extensive ones.
Regarding the prevalence of clinical signs, a trend was observed (X
2
3.08; p< 0.07) that a greater number of those flocks located
in the QyVA region exceeded the average score compared to those located in the VTyY, which presented a higher prevalence of
Famacha scores 4 and 5 and lameness. It is concluded that the selected set of management and animal-based measures was able
to discriminate the welfare of goats between farms in different regions and productive systems of the NOA