Animal welfare evaluation of grazing environment by animal needs index: ANI35L/2000-cattle (case study)
2006
Kohari, D.(Ibaraki Univ., Ami (Japan). Coll. of Agriculture) | Kosako, T. | Fukasawa, M. | Tsukada, H. | Sato, S.
We evaluated the applicability of the Animal Needs Index (ANI), a general evaluation standard of the farming environment for animal welfare in the German bloc, in the grazing environment. Four grazing lands with different grazing conditions were evaluated by ANI35L/2000 for cattle. The grazing conditions were as follows: (1) Range-K in Akita prefecture: About 30 Japanese Shorthorn cattle were grazed in 2,000 ha of mountainous area for 150-180 days a year(-1) in continuous grazing. (2) Farm-O in Iwate prefecture: 170 Japanese Shorthorn and Japanese Black cattle were grazed in 260 ha of pasture for 250 days a year(-1) in a rotational grazing system. (3) Farm-I in Miyagi prefecture: 85 Japanese Black cattle were grazed in 144 ha of pasture with some concentrates for 250 days a year(-1) in a rotational grazing system (for the gestation period) or an on-and-off system of continuous grazing (for the postpartum period until weaning). (4) Pasture-D in Tochigi prefecture: Four Holstein steers were grazed in 1 ha of pasture for 180 days a year(-1) in a rotational grazing system. The scores of the standards for grazing in ANI ranged from -1 to 16 occupying 31.2% of all of the scores in ANI. The scores for each grazing land were (1) 11 points, (2) 14.5 points, (3) 14 points, and (4) 11.5 points, respectively. These scores reflected the number of grazing days, because the standards for grazing in ANI were mainly comprised of the number of grazing days. We suggest that it is necessary to devise a more detailed standard such as the topography, the scale and the vegetation of the grazing lands for application to various grazing systems.
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