A shorter on-farm dairy welfare assessment protocol that can provide useful feedback to producers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21423/aabppro20183247Keywords:
welfare assessment, dairy cattle, modified protocol, CanadaAbstract
On-farm dairy welfare assessments are important tools for the dairy industry. There are several existing assessment protocols; however, these can be quite time-consuming to complete on-farm. The aim of our study was to modify an existing Canadian assessment protocol, the basis for the Dairy Farmers of Canada animal assessment program, to reduce the amount of time needed to complete an assessment on-farm. The original assessment required 2 separate visits to the farm, which took on average 8 to 9 hours and 4 hours to complete, respectively. The goal for the modified assessment protocol was to complete an assessment in a single 6 to 8 hour visit.