The correlation of Qualitative Behavior Assessments with Welfare Quality® protocol outcomes in on-farm welfare assessment of dairy cattle
The correlation of Qualitative Behavior Assessments with Welfare Quality® protocol outcomes in on-farm welfare assessment of dairy cattle
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DOI：
10.1016/j.applanim.2012.11.013
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发表时间：
2013-01-15
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Forkman, B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Andreasen, S. N.;Wemelsfelder, F.;Forkman, B.
自20世纪90年代末以来，开发农场一级动物福利评估方法的努力急剧增长，最终由欧洲范围的项目福利质量(R)(WQ)制定了协议。然而，这些方案非常耗时，而且在如何将分数汇总为福利结果方面缺乏透明度。目前的研究调查了定性行为评估(QBA)作为一种独立的综合筛选工具在应用完整的WQ协议之前识别福利受损的农场的可能性。QBA是一种耗时少得多的方法。QBA是一种“全动物”方法，要求人类观察者将动物的表情行为及其背景总结为放松、焦虑、满意或沮丧等描述符--这些术语的情感内涵似乎与动物福利直接相关。两名受过QBA培训的评估员和一名受过培训的福利质量(R)评估员在不同的时间访问了43个丹麦奶牛场，前者侧重于QBA，后者进行了全面的WQ协议评估。QBA评分采用主成分分析(相关矩阵，无旋转)，WQ方案数据按WQ方案进行分析和整合。使用非参数方法(Spearman Rank和Kendall W)将QBA和WQ方案的结果关联起来。两个QBA评价者之间的观察者间一致性非常显著(P
The effort to develop methods for assessing animal welfare at farm level has grown dramatically since the end of the 1990s, culminating in the protocols developed by the European-wide project Welfare Quality (R) (WQ). However, these protocols are time consuming and lack transparency in how scores are aggregated into welfare outcomes. The current study investigates the potential of Qualitative Behavior Assessment (QBA), a much less time-consuming approach, to be used as a stand-alone integrative screening tool for identifying farms with compromised welfare before applying the full WQ protocol. QBA is a 'whole-animal' approach asking human observers to summarize animals' expressive demeanor and its context into descriptors such as relaxed, anxious, content or frustrated -terms which given their emotional connotation appear to have direct relevance to animal welfare. Two trained QBA-assessors, and one trained Welfare Quality (R) assessor visited 43 Danish dairy cattle farms at different times, the former focusing on QBA and the latter making a full WQ protocol assessment. The QBA scores were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis (correlation matrix, no rotation), and WQ protocol data were analyzed and integrated according to the WQ protocol. The resulting QBA and WQ protocol outcomes were correlated using non-parametric methods (Spearman Rank and Kendall W). Highly significant inter-observer agreement was found between the two QBA-assessors (P