The Development of an Epidemiologically Based On-Farm Welfare Assessment System for use with Dairy Cows

A scientifically based and operational welfare assessment tool for advice and control purposes must involve measures that are reliable and valid, be both easily and swiftly operated, and reveal the causes of impaired welfare. In our view these criteria can only be fulfilled by applying a mixture of animal-related parameters, i.e. direct welfare indicators, and indirect housing and human-related parameters, i.e. influencing factors. However, although our knowledge of the effects of individual influencing factors on animal health and well-being is in part well developed, relatively little is known about the effects of the interaction of these factors and their relative importance within the animal's complex environment. We therefore propose to undertake epidemiological research and use multivariate analysis in order to construct assessment models relating to particular aspects of welfare. The integration of individual evaluations into one overall welfare assessment may entail a loss of information and is, we suggest, in many cases unnecessary.