Human-animal relationships in the Norwegian dairy goat industry: assessment of pain and provision of veterinary treatment (Part II)
Stockpeoples’ ability to recognise pain in their livestock, and to respond appropriately, is of utmost importance for animal welfare. Assessment of pain is complex, and attitudes and empathy are thought to play a role in peoples’ responses to the sight of pain. In a separate paper we investigated the dimensionality of Norwegian dairy goat stockpeoples’ […]
Human-animal relationships in the Norwegian dairy goat industry: attitudes and empathy towards goats (Part I)
The quality of human-animal relationships in the livestock industries has been increasingly recognised as an important determinant of animal welfare. Attitudes and empathy are multi-dimensional traits that may be associated with the stockpersons’ behaviour. The aim of this study was to determine the dimensionality of the goat-oriented attitudes and empathy of stockpeople in the Norwegian […]
Development and testing of an on-farm welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats
To ensure that farm animal welfare issues are identified and addressed appropriately, there is a need for robust on-farm welfare assessment protocols. This paper describes the development of a comprehensive welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats (Capra hircus) and its testing on 30 commercial dairy goat farms in Norway. The protocol combines animal-based welfare indicators […]
Validity and feasibility of Human-Animal Relationship tests for on-farm welfare assessment in dairy goats
This study aims at establishing suitable tests to measure the quality of the Human-Animal Relationship (HAR) in dairy goats for on-farm welfare assessment protocols by evaluating the predictive validity of different categories of HAR tests and their feasibility in on-farm condition. Twelve commercial dairy farms in Northern Italy were selected and classified as “good” (n […]