Utvecklad modell för enklare djurskyddsbedömning
med exempel från mjölkkor i lösdrift
Developed model for easier animal welfare assessment- with examples from dairy cows in loose housingAnimals in captivity are completely dependent on human care. If captive animals are prevented from exhibiting their natural behavior, they may suffer. Animal welfare inspectors, who insure that the animal welfare legislation is followed, use a checklist to assess the situation in the husbandry. This checklist contains only two levels of assessment, which may result in a lack of detail in the assessment of the husbandry. The objective of this report was to develop a more detailed model that provides an overview of the situation in husbandry. The developed model was customized for dairy cows in loose housing with information from the animal welfare legislation, scientific results and advice from experts, and was then tested in four husbandries for dairy cows. The model was divided into five categories for which the assessment parameters were adapted. A rating scale with different colors and scores was developed to assess different qualities of husbandries and a control help text was made to facilitate the assessment. To illustrate the results they were placed in a pie chart. The major conclusion of this report is that a model like this works very well when the details of animal husbandry shall be shown. Besides that, a rating scale with more levels than those in the current checklist is necessary to develop an accurate overview of animal husbandries. A model like this can help the animal welfare inspectors to distinguish different types of animal keepers and thus optimize inspection procedures.