The 'Real Welfare' scheme: benchmarking welfare outcomes for commercially farmed pigs.

ABSTRACT: Animal welfare standards have been incorporated in EU legislation and in farm assurance schemes, based on scientific information and aiming to safeguard the welfare of the species concerned. Recently, emphasis has shifted from resource-based measures of welfare to animal-based measures, which are considered to assess more accurately the welfare status. The data used in this analysis were collected from April 2013 to May 2016 through the 'Real Welfare' scheme in order to assess on-farm pig welfare, as required for those finishing pigs under the UK Red Tractor Assurance scheme. The assessment involved five main measures (percentage of pigs requiring hospitalization, percentage of lame pigs, percentage of pigs with severe tail lesions, percentage of pigs with severe body marks and enrichment

SUBMITTER: Pandolfi F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5607875 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature