Turkeys in an app: facilitating practical on-farm welfare and health assessment of commercial turkeys
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Data di Pubblicazione:
2015
Citazione:
Turkeys in an app: facilitating practical on-farm welfare and health assessment of commercial turkeys / I. Estevez, J. Marchewka, V. Ferrante, T.T.N. Watanabe, G. Vezzoli, M. Makagon, A.J. Zanella. ((Intervento presentato al convegno Animal Welfare Indicators Final Conference tenutosi a Brussels nel 2015.
Abstract:
Welfare assessment protocols must be science based and reliable, but also they must be
practical for on-farm application. In this regard, protocols that are simple to implement and
easy to understand by farmers and technical staf[ are more likely to be understood, adopted,
and ultimately become a relevant tool [or guiding the companies' decision making processo Onfarm
welfare assessment in commerciai meat poultry is particularly challenging because of the
large number of individuals composing the flocks. Current available protocols for meat poultry
requires catching and bird handling, resulting in a procedure that is time, manpower
demanding, expensive and dangerous for birds and humans in the case of turkey assessment.
However, farmers and flock supervisors in turkey production conduct daily routine checks
based on walks through the production houses. These screenings allow individuais with visible
severe problems to be identified, providing an estimation of the flock health and welfare status
with minimai disruption to the birds. The new turkey protocoi based on the transect approach
method ofassessment provides the dynamism ofthe walk-through inspections, but is conducted
in a way that provides veracity, and inter-observer reliability. The transect method for turkey
welfare assessment consisted of standardized walks through which the frequency of birds
observed showing any of the predefined welfare indicators are collected and results
standardized according to the actual population size. Transect walks allowed the detection of
small variations in the prevalence of most welfare indicators considered across houses, while
showing high inter-observer reliability. The results obtained in the turkey study provi de
supporting evidence that the transect approach is a simple, but reliable, method of on-farm
welfare assessment. The method has the advantage of being readily acceptable and easy to
implement by producers, while maintaining high inter-observer reliability, and requiring
minimum training. The i-WatchTurkey app specifically developed for on-farm turkey welfare
assessment allows easy assessment of the incidence of the most relevant welfare indicators in a
simple manner at the time of regular health inspection.
Tipologia IRIS:
14 - Intervento a convegno non pubblicato
Elenco autori:
I. Estevez, J. Marchewka, V. Ferrante, T.T.N. Watanabe, G. Vezzoli, M. Makagon, A.J. Zanella
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