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To meet or not to meet welfare outcome thresholds: a case-control study in dairy cow herds
•Classifying dairy herds according to normative thresholds for welfare outcomes.•Use of cumulative logistic regression to identify associations with risk indicators.•No principal risk indicator was identified which determined exceedance of thresholds.•Outcome-specific risk indicators affect categori...
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Published in: | Animal (Cambridge, England) England), 2022-03, Vol.16 (3), p.100461-100461, Article 100461 |
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Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | •Classifying dairy herds according to normative thresholds for welfare outcomes.•Use of cumulative logistic regression to identify associations with risk indicators.•No principal risk indicator was identified which determined exceedance of thresholds.•Outcome-specific risk indicators affect categorisation of herds.•Identified risk indicators may be considered in advisory strategies.
Recently published thresholds allow classifying dairy cattle herds according to target, caution and alert ranges for welfare outcomes. Such normative thresholds provide one way to transparently assess production practices and are a straightforward communication tool with farmers. In an ordinal response case-control study, we investigated associations of animal, management and resource-related indicators with the risk of exceeding thresholds of prevalence for lameness, claw disorders, integument alterations and leg cleanliness. To this end, we used cumulative logistic regression models on 264 tethered and 392 loose-housed Austrian dairy herds. In tethered herds, the risk indicator average lactation milk yield was positively associated with the probability to exceed thresholds for integument alteration prevalence but negatively regarding leg cleanliness. Associations were also found for operation type regarding integument alterations (lower risk on organic vs conventional farms), for herd size regarding lameness (negative association) and dirty upper hind leg (positive association), and for percentage of fifth or higher parity cows in the herd regarding dirty lower hind leg (positive association). Stall type was identified as risk indicator regarding claw disorders (lower risk of long vs short stands). In loose housing systems, none of the analysed risk indicators was associated with the probability to exceed thresholds for total lameness and claw disorder prevalence. Negative associations with the probability to exceed caution or alert thresholds were identified for lifetime milk yield (dirty upper hind leg), lactation milk yield (dirty upper and lower hind leg), percentage of cows in the herd with a fat-protein-ratio 1.5 (dirty upper hind leg). Pasture access showed negative (severe lameness, integument alterations) and herd size positive associations (severe lameness) with the probability to exceed thresholds. Deep litter cubicles compared to raised cubicles with rubber mats showed a lowe |
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ISSN: | 1751-7311 1751-732X |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.animal.2022.100461 |