Some abstracts do not have video files because ASAS was denied recording rights.
275
Assessing and improving welfare in cow calf systems
To date, animal welfare assessment, particularly independent audits, have focused on intensive animal agriculture. As public and corporate interest in farm-to-plate animal welfare assurance grows, extensive animal agriculture, such as cow-calf operations, may begin to be audited as well. The extensive nature of cow-calf systems presents both opportunities and challenges from an auditing perspective. Cow-calf operations lend themselves towards animal welfare auditing from two perspectives: direct inspection of animals (animal-based measures) and evaluation of practices or records (management-based measures). Looking at the animals directly during a ranch visit allows assessment of several key welfare concerns, namely stockmanship, animal behavior during handling, long-term effects of forage availability (e.g. body condition), and some health conditions like lameness, pinkeye and injury. An investigative approach to assessing management practices provides information about welfare concerns, including pain management during common procedures, weaning practices, and antibiotic use (a proxy for incidence of health problems such as bovine respiratory disease). When available, direct inspection of ranch records can also provide information about frequency and causes of mortality. The more challenging aspects of animal welfare assessment on cow-calf operations are related to how cattle are kept, or facility-based measures, including: water access and quality, access to dry, protected lying areas, shade and shelter. Assessing the animal welfare implications of transport are also a challenge. These environmental factors are known to be important, yet change on a regular basis, thus are difficult to audit. In addition, there are other logistical challenges including the size of the cow-calf sector (757,000 US ranches) and, in some cases, limited availability of days/year and facilities to directly observe cattle. Despite these challenges, there is tremendous potential to provide valuable feedback to ranchers and their customers and ultimately improve animal welfare in the cow-calf sector.
Keywords: cow-calf, welfare, assessment