| The intensive farm causes a large number of animal welfare issues, such as theoccurrence and epidemic of animal diseases, subsequently resulting in a threat to humanhealth and the sustainable development of animal husbandry. More and more attention waspayed to animal welfare from the general public and government. The animal welfarestandards have been added into the Terrestrial Animal Health Code by the WorldOrganization for Animal Health(OIE), stressing that the one of veterinary responsibilitiesand tasks is to improve animal welfare, and requiring member states to implement theminimum animal welfare standards of the Code. However, it is no easy for China to meetthe requirements of animal welfare standards of OIE in a short period of time. In China, thescientific research in the field of animal welfare still have many shortcomings anddeficiencies compared with developed countries, due to the backward research on animalwelfare science, and lacking of evaluation animal welfare standards, law and awareness.The farm animal welfare is becoming a bottleneck of sustainable development of animalhusbandry and livestock trade if effective measures do not taken as soon as possible.Based upon analysis of the foreign farm animal welfare assessment system, in thispaper a scientific and operable farm animal welfare assessment system was established toaccord with our national conditions, using the new evaluation index weight calculationmethod, four evaluation forms were designed for farm farm feeding styles, transport andslaughter welfare and applied to production practice. some improving measures andadvices all major farm animal welfare problems had been suggested. Furthermore, the gapin animal welfare between China and OIE was analyzed. The future direction on animnalwelfare was also suggested. To our knowledge, it is the first time to study on the the farmanimal welfare assessment in China. The cuttent study is to provide an initial operationalparadigm of farm animal welfare assessment, to provide a reference for the relevantgovernment departments, to provide a theoretical basis for the farm animal welfarestandards, and to provide animal welfare measures for enterprise. In addition, our studywill be significant to ultimately reduce animal diseases, to ensure the safety of livestockproducts, and to expand the scale of livestock products trade.On the base of literature and classification, expert consultation and summary of theexisting research results, using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to establish assessmentindex system, using the Delphi method to grade principles and standards level, calculatedweight value and score of every indexes with MATLAB software. According to the final assessment results to rank welfare level by excellent, good, medium and poor.The main conclusions of the paper are as follows:(1) Breeding welfare assessment system include5elements of feeding, housingenvironment, disease prevention and control, behaviour, human and animal relationship.Transport and slaughter welfare assessment system include3elements of ante-mortemdisposal, stunning, bleeding. The research results showed that a score of enterprise isconsistent with its actual situation, and the farm animal welfare assessment index systemhave feasibility and practicability.(2) The result of consistency examination showed that disease control and preventionis the most important factor to affect the breeding aspects of farm animal welfare, theproportion of weight is33.65%, the ante-mortem disposal is the most important factor toaffect the transport and slaughter aspects of farm animal welfare, the proportion ofweight is64.83%.(3)10farming enterprises welfare assessment results:5farming enterprises welfarerating are worse,8farming enterprises welfare rating are medium, non-farming enterprisesachieve good and excellent welfare level; pig enterprise is an average of56.4points,chicken enterprise is an average of62.3points, cattle enterprise is an average of58.5points. On the whole, the generally level of10farming enterprises animal welfare is low,there are still a wide gap compared with good and excellent level. Three evaluation scoreof “Disease treatment”“epidemic prevention”“nature of the expression” is low, Theresults shown that animal health problems and natural behavior is the most importantfactor to improve the focus of the work of breeding farm animal welfare.(4)10slaughter enterprises welfare assessment results:1slaughter enterprise welfarerating is excellent,4slaughter enterprises welfare rating are good,5slaughter enterpriseswelfare rating are medium, there is no slaughter welfare rating for the poor; The pigslaughter enterprise is an average of76.4points, the chicken slaughter enterprise is anaverage of67.67points, the cattle slaughter enterprises is an average of68points. On thewhole, the general level of10slaughter enterprises welfare is medium.“Ante-mortemdisposal” have a significant impact on slaughter welfare, the “ante-mortem transport” is thelowest average score lead to the most serious animal welfare issues.(5) Combined with the actual results of farm animals welfare assessment for mainwelfare problems, and the improvement measures are as follows:Improvement suggestions for pig farming: reform floor and litter; reduce mixedgroups; improve environment house; reduce the inhuman surgery operation; strengtheningthe training of veterinarians and breeders; the improvement of health care system; Improvement suggestions for chicken farming: prevent leg disease; forbid violence withCatching chickens; provide perches; laying bedding material; provide nests. Improvementsuggestions for cattle farming: provide suitable cattle Bed; prevent and control mastitis andleg disease; provide sports venues.Improvement suggestions for pig slaughter: strengthening the training of middleman;adjust anti-slip interval on the lifting platform; strengthening supervision of driven peple;disability or fighting pigs are isolate or priority slaughter; reduce herd density of theentrance to the one-way channel; adjust the assassination of time and the length of theknife-edge. Improvement suggestions for chicken slaughter: the addition of chest touchboard; improve tied hanging operation. Suggestions for improvement in the cattle slaughter:increase anti-slip facility on the ground to protect Important parts of body; usingtransmission and non-transmission stun gun;... |
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