Animal welfare check cattle ✔
Development of an animal welfare assessment tool based on selected indicators for Schleswig-Holstein dairy farms
Project description
The aim of the project is to provide a practical instrument for rapid and regular analysis of animal welfare on dairy farms. This instrument can be used to document and carry out the statutory self-inspection of businesses.
How do we measure animal welfare? Both farmers themselves and politicians want a standardized assessment of the animal welfare situation on Schleswig-Holstein dairy cattle farms. With data from the LKV, the RSH eG and HIT, a large number of indicators are already available that allow a largely automatically generated, standardized, and comparable presentation of the animal welfare situation. They are to be merged for the first time in this project. Timely and regular evaluation of these data will allow farmers to make objective assessments of animal welfare on their farms, without any major extra costs.
As part of the project, farmers, veterinarians, and consultants will to develop, test, and establish this innovative instrument for checking animal welfare while at the same time raising awareness of animal protection and animal welfare. The findings can be used by businesses to optimize herd management and thus improve their animals.
