Practical on-farm solutions for welfare and sustainability: solutions to chronic welfare problems

Challenges

Scotland aims to provide farm animals with the highest possible standards of welfare. This aim sits within the context of a viable and adaptable agriculture sector, able to meet requirements for sustainability, climate change and biodiversity. These drivers are complex, requiring an evolving scientific evidence base to support decision-making, and flexible and innovative approaches to describe and support good welfare practices.

Agricultural practice is plagued by intractable and challenging welfare issues that are the focus of consumer attention:

• Separation of mothers and offspring
• Use of painful procedures,
• Chronic disease issues
• Confinement of animals in limited space with limited opportunities to express natural behaviour.

Increasingly, the ability of farms to meet consumers’ expectations for animal welfare is part of a ‘social licence to operate’ and essential if animal-based farming is to continue alongside other social requirements.

Despite leaving the European Union (EU), Scottish farming policy is influenced by changes in EU legislative approaches to, for example,

• Phase out the use of farrowing crates
• Cease to kill new-born male chicks (Germany)
• Movements towards circular agriculture (the Netherlands)
• Improved sustainability
• Prohibition of using painful management procedures without anaesthesia or analgesia in many countries

For Scottish agriculture to remain competitive and deliver on its ambitions to have some of the highest standards of animal welfare in the world, opportunities to improve farm animal welfare must keep pace with other developments.

Questions

Solutions

This project aims to develop practical solutions to the key on-farm welfare issues and in response to the changing economic and social climate occurring via the UK’s EU-Exit.  This includes evaluating precision livestock farming approaches to develop early warning systems for behaviour problems in pigs and disease issues in sheep, their ethical and practical implications, and how suitable these methods are for welfare management in different contexts.

Evaluating Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) approaches to develop early warning systems for behaviour problems in pigs and disease issues in sheep

We have previously explored the use of precision livestock farming monitoring tail posture and behaviour to indicate behaviour, health and welfare problems in pigs, and chronic welfare issues in sheep using 2D or 3D cameras, sensors, and other monitors. The work has scope to allow greater use to be made of the data and to allow greater understanding of behavioural responses in sheep. We are evaluating the ethical and practical implications of using PLF approaches for different species, and how suitable these methods are for welfare management in different contexts. In sheep, we also consider the opportunities to provide improved welfare and sustainability through use of sensor-based assessments of behaviour and welfare.

Evaluating and disseminating alternatives to farrowing crate systems for pigs

The UK operates 40% of its breeding herd in zero confinement systems outdoors but there is pressure for higher welfare indoor alternatives. However, producers have concerns about increased piglet mortality, cost, and stock person safety from these alternatives. Early adopters have recorded both positive and negative experiences.  We are examining the available evidence to produce best-practice solutions.

Developing on-farm solutions to improve monitoring of nutritional management of cattle and sheep

Undernutrition or poor nutritional management is one of the most important chronic welfare issues for the management of cattle and sheep. We are improving the monitoring of nutritional management to provide practical on-farm tools to assist farmers in managing this welfare issue. We are then evaluating the effectiveness of alternative methods to reduce the pain associated with management procedures. Pain, experienced by cattle, sheep and pigs, as a direct or indirect consequence of management remains an important welfare issue, and one where consumer attention is often focused.

Providing mother-offspring contact in dairy systems

In conventional dairy farms, calves are separated from their dams (mothers) typically within the first 24 hours after birth. In recent years, some farmers in Scotland have started keeping the calf and mother together for three to six months after birth. The milk, and other dairy products, from these farms command a high premium, indicating high demand, at least in some sectors of the community. We are researching these alternative approaches to explore weaning at an older age as the distress, and extent of cross-suckling of older calves is much more evident than in day-old calves.

Positioning male dairy calves in the value chain

The fate of male and female dairy calves in excess of farm replacement needs is a contentious issue. Consumers object to euthanasia of male calves on the farm of birth and the transport of young calves. In response, some progressive milk buyers and retailers require farmers to retain all calves on the origin farm until 8-12 weeks of age. The use of sexed semen may reduce the number of unwanted males. However, some calves are of low value and likely to receive poor care. We are investigating the blockages that prevent excess male and female calves becoming valuable products to the dairy-beef sector.

Project Partners

Progress