Expert opinion as 'validation' of risk assessment applied to calf welfare.

Background: Recently, a Risk Assessment methodology was applied to animal welfare issues in a report of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on intensively housed calves.

Methods: Because this is a new and potentially influential approach to derive conclusions on animal welfare issues, a so-called semantic-modelling type 'validation' study was conducted by asking expert scientists, who had been involved or quoted in the report, to give welfare scores for housing systems and for welfare hazards.

Results: Kendall's coefficient of concordance among experts (n = 24) was highly significant (P < 0.

Age, gender and litter-related variation in T-lymphocyte cytokine production in young pigs.

The capacity of farm animals to produce cytokines could be an important determinant of robustness and health. From research in rodents and humans it appears that the production and the balance of T helper 1 (Th1) and T helper 2 (Th2)-type cytokines influences susceptibility to autoimmune and infectious diseases. It is known that pigs show a large variation in many immune response parameters.