Protection and welfare of animals in dairy production | Zascita in dobro pocutje zivali v prireji mleka
2009
Ornik, D., Maribor Univ. (Slovenia). Fac. of Agriculture and life Sciences | Volk, M. | Brus, M. | Janzekovic, M.
The introduction of European standards into Slovene legislation has led to essential changes in dairy production. The number of small dairy producers has been reduced, but the number of milk cows on the farms has increased and the quality of milk has risen to reach European level. Increased have also demands to assure ethical and animal friendly breeding, animal health, ethnology and welfare of animals. This is getting more and more important especially with consumers of animal food, who are in greater extent demanding that handling animals is ethical and humane. In this research are presented valid standards for the protection of animals, significant European activities in the domain of animal welfare and the results of established conditions in the cowsheds with milk cows in the region of NE Slovenia. We inspected 10 farms with animals having free access to pasture and also evaluated the suitability of breeding after the Austrian method. Animal Needs Index (ANI) which in Slovenia is already being used in sustainable animal breeding will in near future be incorporated into our legislation. The research has shown that 5 farms reached ANI at least 27,5 points, two have reached 22 or 19,5 points and three farms, where the cows did not have access to pasture, have reached 13 or 6,5 points. The analysis of correlation of five influential areas with the causes for separation, the portion of animals in the particular lactation and fertility parameters in the herd has shown that the total number of reached points is strongly negative significant (p 8804; 0,05) in correlation with sudden death of animals; weakly negative significant (p 8804; 0,05) with the number of first calving cows and weakly negative significant with slaughter and unknown cause of separation.
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