Can a Digital Application for Animal Welfare Self-Assessments by Farmers Help Improve the Welfare of Free-Range and Organic Pigs?

As part of the European Green Deal, the EU has recognised that there is a need to increase organic farming as well as improve animal welfare standards. The PIGLOW app was developed with these goals in mind and allows free-range and organic pig farmers to perform welfare assessments (WAs) of their pigs. The results of each WA contain automated feedback and benchmarking information.

The impact of early-life conditions on visual discrimination abilities in free-ranging laying hens.

Conditions during incubation and rearing can greatly affect the developmental trajectory of chickens, in a positive and negative way. In this study, the effect of early-life conditions on the visual discrimination abilities of adult, free-ranging laying hens was examined. These early-life treatments entailed incubation in a 12/12h green light/dark cycle and rearing with Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as foraging enrichment.

Inferring resource use from functional area presence in a small, single-flock of chickens in a mobile barn.

In poultry behavior research, the reliance on presence data to estimate actual resource usage has substantially increased with the advent of tracking technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and image-based systems. Although such widely used technologies are fundamentally designed for presence tracking, many studies claim to use them to investigate actual resource usage. This study investigates whether the duration of chickens' presence near key resources accurately reflects their actual usage.

Invited review: Quantifying multiple burdens of dairy cattle production diseases and reproductive inefficiency-Current knowledge and proposed metrics.

The economic burden of diseases and reproductive inefficiency in dairy cattle is evident and has been quantified. Dairy diseases and reproductive inefficiency are however associated with other issues as well, including animal welfare, environmental pressure, and public health risks. Quantifying these other issues is becoming important to help farmers make decisions.

Effects of lighted incubation and foraging enrichment during rearing on individual fear behavior, corticosterone, and neuroplasticity in laying hen pullets.

Environmental conditions during incubation and rearing can influence stress responsivity of laying hen pullets throughout their lifespan, and therefore have important implications for their welfare. In this study, a 12:12h green LED light-dark cycle during incubation and larvae provisioning as enrichment during rearing were tested as strategies to optimize early-life conditions and thereby decrease stress responsivity in ISA Brown laying hens. A combination of parameters was measured to indicate neuronal, physiological, and behavioral changes that may affect fear and stress.

Attitudes of clients of Dutch pest controllers towards integrated pest management (IPM) and preventive measures in relation to rodent nuisance.

Background: Rodent management with lethal methods (e.g., rodenticides) comes with downsides for rodent welfare, the environment and non-target species.

A two-step Bayesian network approach to identify key SNPs associated to multiple phenotypic traits in four purebred laying hen lines.

When purebred laying hen chicks hatch, they remain at a rearing farm until approximately 17 weeks of age, after which they are transferred to a laying farm. Chicks or pullets are removed from the flocks during these 17 weeks if they display any rearing abnormality. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and rearing success of 4 purebred White Leghorns layer lines by implementing a Bayesian network approach.

A new approach and insights on modelling the impact of production diseases on dairy cow welfare.

Animal welfare is becoming an important consideration in animal health-related decision-making. Integrating considerations of animal welfare into the decision-making process of farmers involves recognising the significance of health disorder impacts in relation to animal welfare. Yet little research quantifies the impact, making it difficult to include animal welfare in the animal health decision-making process.

Handling End-of-Life Situations in Small Animal Practice: What Strategies do Veterinarians Contemplate During their Decision-Making Process?

This study researched end-of-life (EoL) decision-making processes in small animal practices in the Netherlands, focusing on strategies veterinarians contemplate during this process. Fourteen veterinarians were interviewed about animal end-of-life decision-making. The results of these interviews show that the decision-making process consists of three steps.

Early-life interventions to prevent feather pecking and reduce fearfulness in laying hens.

Severe feather pecking, the pulling out of feathers of conspecifics, is a major welfare issue in laying hens. Possible underlying causes are fearfulness and lack of foraging opportunities. Because early life is a crucial stage in behavioral development, adapting the incubation and rearing environment to the birds' needs may reduce fearfulness and prevent the development of feather pecking.

Setting the stage to tag "n" track: a guideline for implementing, validating and reporting a radio frequency identification system for monitoring resource visit behavior in poultry.

Passive radio frequency identification (RFID) can advance poultry behavior research by enabling automated, individualized, longitudinal, in situ, and noninvasive monitoring; these features can usefully extend traditional approaches to animal behavior monitoring. Furthermore, since the technology can provide insight into the visiting patterns of tagged animals at functional resources (e.g.

Group level and individual activity of broiler chickens hatched in 3 different systems.

Information on the behavior of chickens hatched in different systems is limited and inconsistent across different studies. Changes in broiler activity can be measured automatically and continuously. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of 3 hatching systems on flock activity using a commercial tracking system, and to compare these findings to individual activity measured under experimental conditions.

Genetics of rearing success in four pure laying hen lines during the first 17 weeks of age.

This study aimed to investigate the genetics of rearing success (RS) in laying hens. Four rearing traits: clutch size (CS), first week mortality (FWM), rearing abnormalities (RA), and natural death (ND), were included as factors determining RS. Pedigree, genotypic, and phenotypic records of 4 purebred genetic lines of White Leghorn layers were available for 23,000 rearing batches obtained between 2010 and 2020.

Effects of hatching system on chick quality, welfare and health of young breeder flock offspring.

Alternative hatching systems have been developed for broiler chickens to provide immediately feed and water after hatch and reduce the number or severity of early life stressors. Besides beneficial effects of these alternative hatching systems on chick quality and performance, broiler health and welfare may be positively affected as well. Especially offspring from young broiler breeder flocks may benefit, as they have been shown to be more sensitive to preturbations than offspring from older breeder flocks.

Effects of incubation lighting with green or white light on brown layers: hatching performance, feather pecking and hypothalamic expressions of genes related with photoreception, serotonin, and stress systems.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of 16L:8D photoperiod with green (GREEN) or white (WHITE) lights during incubation on hatching performance, blood melatonin, corticosterone, and serotonin levels, hypothalamic expressions of genes related to photoreception, serotonin, and stress systems in layers in relation with feather pecking behavior. Dark incubation (DARK) was the control. Eggs (n = 1,176) from Brown Nick breeders in 2 batches (n = 588/batch) were incubated in the experiment.

Early locomotor activity in broilers and the relationship with body weight gain.

Fast-growing broilers are relatively inactive and this is thought to be a result of selection for high growth rates. This reduced activity level is considered a major cause of leg weakness and associated leg health problems. Increased activity, especially early in life, is suggested to have positive effects on leg health, but the relationship between early activity and growth is unclear.

Welfare issues and potential solutions for laying hens in free range and organic production systems: A review based on literature and interviews.

In free-range and organic production systems, hens can make choices according to their needs and desires, which is in accordance with welfare definitions. Nonetheless, health and behavioral problems are also encountered in these systems. The aim of this article was to identify welfare challenges observed in these production systems in the EU and the most promising solutions to overcome these challenges.

The Impact of Service Dogs on Military Veterans and (Ex) First Aid Responders With Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

Due to its novelty and lack of empirical study it remains unclear if a service dog truly mitigates the burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. To cross sectionally investigate the effect of service dogs on veterans and first aid responders with PTSD, we studied subjective and physiological parameters in 65 individuals divided over four groups. These groups were: veterans and first aid responders with PTSD and a service dog ( = 20), with PTSD and a companion dog ( = 10), with PTSD without a dog ( = 12) and a group without PTSD ( = 23).

Effects of a Multi-Suckling System Combined With Enriched Housing Post-Weaning on Response and Cognitive Resilience to Isolation.

Improving welfare is still a critical issue in pig husbandry. Upgrades of the housing environment seem to be a promising solution to optimise resilience as a whole, and therefore improve animal welfare. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of an alternative housing system to enhance cognitive resilience and also to promote the pigs' welfare.

A multi-suckling system combined with an enriched housing environment during the growing period promotes resilience to various challenges in pigs.

Little is known about the impact of social and environmental enrichment on improving livestock resilience, i.e. the ability to quickly recover from perturbations.

The Relationships between Damaging Behaviours and Health in Laying Hens.

Since the ban in January 2012 of conventional cages for egg production in the European Union (Council Directive 1999/74/EC), alternative systems such as floor, aviary, free-range, and organic systems have become increasingly common, reaching 50% of housing for hens in 2019. Despite the many advantages associated with non-cage systems, the shift to a housing system where laying hens are kept in larger groups and more complex environments has given rise to new challenges related to management, health, and welfare. This review examines the close relationships between damaging behaviours and health in modern husbandry systems for laying hens.

Impact of Enrichment and Repeated Mixing on Resilience in Pigs.

Resilience, the capacity of animals to be minimally affected by a disturbance or to rapidly bounce back to the state before the challenge, may be improved by enrichment, but negatively impacted by a high allostatic load from stressful management procedures in pigs. We investigated the combined effects of diverging environmental conditions from weaning and repeated mixing to create high allostatic load on resilience of pigs. Pigs were either exposed to barren housing conditions (B) from weaning onwards or provided with sawdust, extra toys, regular access to a "play arena" and daily positive human contact (E).

Hair Cortisol in Service Dogs for Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Compared to Companion Dogs ().

Service dogs are trained to assist humans. This assistance potentially exposes them to stressors To investigate if service dogs are exposed to more stressors than companion dogs we questioned whether hair cortisol levels differed between both groups. We studied this by cutting a tuft of hair from the neck of 19 companion and 11 service dogs.