Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-h6jzd Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-02-23T14:25:27.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Test-retest reliability of the Welfare Quality® animal welfare assessment protocol for growing pigs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

I Czycholl ,
C Kniese ,
K Büttner ,
E Grosse Beilage ,
L Schrader  and
J Krieter
I Czycholl*
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Breeding and Husbandry, Christian-Albrechts-University, Olshausenstr 40, D-24098 Kiel, Germany
C Kniese
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich Loeffler Institut, Doernbergstr 25/27, D-29223 Celle, Germany
K Büttner
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Breeding and Husbandry, Christian-Albrechts-University, Olshausenstr 40, D-24098 Kiel, Germany
E Grosse Beilage
Affiliation:
Field Station for Epidemiology, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Buescheler Str 9, D-49456 Bakum, Germany
L Schrader
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich Loeffler Institut, Doernbergstr 25/27, D-29223 Celle, Germany
J Krieter
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Breeding and Husbandry, Christian-Albrechts-University, Olshausenstr 40, D-24098 Kiel, Germany
*
* Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and test-retest reliability of the Welfare Quality® Animal Welfare Assessment Protocol for Growing Pigs. Twenty-three German pig farms were visited repeatedly by the same trained observers; each farm being visited six times during two fattening periods. The entire protocol assessment was carried out during each farm visit, ie a Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA), behavioural observations (BO), a Human Animal Relationship test (HAR) and different individual parameters (IPs), eg bursitis and tail-biting. Test-retest reliability was evaluated by a Wilcoxon signed rank test (W) and by calculation of the Smallest Detectable Change (SDC) and Limits of Agreement (LoA). The QBA presented non-satisfactory agreement between farm visits. However, good agreement, in general, was found for the BO. For the HAR, no reliability could be detected. Most IPs were of acceptable agreement, with the exception of bursitis and manure on the body. Bursitis showed great differences, which can be explained by difficulties in the assessment when the animals moved around or their legs were dirty. The disagreement in the parameter manure on the body can be explained by seasonal effects. Disagreement was further found concerning the parameters coughing, sneezing, pleuritis, pneumonia and milkspots. Feasibility was good; both observers could be well-trained to fulfil the protocol. Furthermore, the time needed for an assessment did not exceed 6 h. The parts of the protocol that proved to be insufficiently reliable need to be addressed in the future in order to enhance and improve the objective measurement of animal welfare.

Keywords

animal-based measureanimal welfare assessmentfarmpigtest-retest reliabilityWelfare Quality®
Type
Articles
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , November 2016 , pp. 447 - 459
Copyright
© 2016 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bland, MJ and Altman, DG 1986 Statistical methods for assessing agreement between two methods of clinical measurement. The Lancet 327: 307–310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(86)90837-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blokhuis, H, Jones, B, Veissier, I and Miele, M 2013 Improving Farm Animal Welfare. Wageningen Academic Publishers: Wageningen, The Netherlands. http://dx.doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-770-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, NR, Heth, D, Miller, H, Donahoe, J and Martin, GN 2009 Psychology: The Science of Behavior. Pearson: Harlow, UKGoogle Scholar
Curry, HB and Schoenberg, IJ 1966 On Polyoma frequency functions IV: the fundamental spline functions and their limits. Journal d’Analyse Mathematique 17: 71–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02788653CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Eath, RB 2002 Individual aggressiveness measured in a resi-dent-intruder test predicts the persistence of aggressive behav-iour and weight gain of young pigs after mixing. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 77: 267–283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(02)00077-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Passillé, AM and Rushen, J 2005 Can we measure human animal interactions in on-farm animal welfare assessment? Some unresolved issues. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 92: 193–209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2005.05.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vet, HCW 2005 Observer Reliability and Agreement. Wiley and Sons: Chichester, UK. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/0470011815.b2a04033CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vet, HCW, Terwee, CB, Knol, DL and Bouter, LM 2006 When to use agreement versus reliability measures. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 59: 1033–1039. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2005.10.015CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dohoo, I, Martin, W and Stryhn, H 2003 Screening and diag-nostic tests. Veterinary Epidemiologic Research 1: 85–120Google Scholar
Donoghue, D and Stokes, EK 2009 How much change is true change? The minimum detectable change of the Berg Balance Scale in elderly people. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine 41: 343–346. http://dx.doi.org/10.2340/16501977-0337CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forkmann, B and Keeling, LJ 2009 Assessment of Animal Welfare Measures for Sows, Piglets and Fattening Pigs. Welfare Quality Reports: Cardiff, UKGoogle Scholar
Gamer, M, Lemon, J, Fellows, I and Singh, P 2012 Irr: various coefficients of interrater reliability and agreement (R package version 0.83). http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=irrGoogle Scholar
Gelman, A and Stern, H 2006 The difference between signifi-cant and not significant is not itself statistically significant. The American Statistician 60: 328–331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1198/000313006X152649CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grabisch, M and Roubens, M 2000 Application of the Choquet integral in multicriteria decision making. In: Grabisch, M, Murofushi, T and Sugeno, M (eds) Fuzzy Measures and Integrals pp 348–375. Physika Verlag: Heidelberg, GermanyGoogle Scholar
Hoischen-Taubner, S, Blaha, T, Werner, C and Sundrum, A 2011 Zur Reproduzierbarkeit der Befunderfassung am Schlachthof fuer Merkmale der Tiergesundheit. Archiv fuer Lebensmittelhygiene 6: 82–87. [Title translation: Repeatability of anatomical-pathological findings at the abattoir for characteristics of animal health]Google Scholar
Huynh, TTT, Aarnink, AJA, Gerrits, WJJ, Heetkamp, MJH, Canh, TT, Spoolder, HAM, Kemp, B and Verstegen, MWA 2005 Thermal behaviour of growing pigs in response to high tem-perature and humidity. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 91: 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.10.020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirchner, MK, Westerath-Niklaus, HS, Knierim, U, Tessitore, E, Cozzi, G, Vogl, C and Winckler, C 2014 Attitudes and expectations of beef farmers in Austria, Germany and Italy towards the Welfare Quality®assessment system. Livestock Science 160: 102–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2013.12.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knierim, U and Winckler, C 2009 On-farm welfare assessment in cattle: validity, reliability and feasibility issues and future per-spectives with special regard to the Welfare Quality® approach. Animal Welfare 18: 451–458.Google Scholar
Koehler, W, Schachtel, G and Voleske, P 1996 Biostatistik. Springer: Berlin, Germany. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06117-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, C, Bruce, J, Fowler, V and English, P 1995 A compari-son of productivity and welfare of growing pigs in four intensive systems. Livestock Production Science 43: 265–274. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0301-6226(95)00050-UCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magerman, DM 1995 Statistical decision-tree models for parsing. Proceedings of the 33rd annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics pp 276–283. Association for Computational Linguistics: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.3115/981658.981695CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, P and Bateson, P 2007 Measuring Behaviour: An Introductory Guide. University of Cambridge: Cambridge, UK. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511810893CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meese, GB and Ewbank, R 1973 The establishment and nature of the dominance hierarchy in the domesticated pig. Animal Behaviour 21: 326–334. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0003-3472(73)80074-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen, EV, Candek-Potokar, M, Oksama, M, Kien, S, Lisiak, D and Busk, H 2007 On-line measurements in pig carcass classi-fication: Repeatability and variation caused by the operator and the copy of instrument. Meat science 75: 29–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2006.06.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plonait, H, Bickhardt, K and Waldmann, K-H 2004 Lehrbuch der Schweinekrankheiten. Georg Thieme Verlag: Stuttgart, GermanyGoogle Scholar
SAS Institute 2008 SAS/STAT 9.2. User's Guide. SAS Institute Inc: Cary, NC, USAGoogle Scholar
Shrout, PE and Fleiss, JL 1979 Intraclass correlations: Uses in assessing rater reliability. Psychological Bulletin 86: 420–428. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.2.420CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Temple, D, Courboulay, V, Manteca, X, Velarde, A and Dalmau, A 2011c The Welfare of Pigs in Five Different Production Systems in France and Spain: Assessment of Behaviour. Wageningen Academic Publishers: Indianapolis, USAGoogle Scholar
Temple, D, Courboulay, V, Manteca, X, Velarde, A and Dalmau, A 2012b The welfare of growing pigs in five different production systems: assessment of feeding and housing. Animal 6:656–667. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1751731111001868CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Temple, D, Courboulay, V, Velarde, A, Dalmau, A and Manteca, X 2012a The welfare of growing pigs in five different production systems in France and Spain: assessment of health. Animal Welfare 21: 257–271. http://dx.doi.org/10.7120/09627286.21.2.257CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temple, D, Dalmau, A, Ruiz de la Torre, J, Manteca, X and Velarde, A 2011a Application of the Welfare Quality protocol to assess growing pigs kept under intensive conditions in Spain. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research 6:138–149. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2010.10.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temple, D, Manteca, X, Dalmau, A and Velarde, A 2013 Assessment of test-retest reliability of animal-based measures on growing pig farms. Livestock Science 151: 35–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2012.10.012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temple, D, Manteca, X, Velarde, A and Dalmau, A 2011b Assessment of animal welfare through behavioural parameters in Iberian pigs in intensive and extensive conditions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 131: 29–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applan-im.2011.01.013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tierschutzbund, D 2013 Kriterienkatalog für eine tiergerechte Haltung und Behandlung von Mastschweinen im Rahmen des Tierschutzlabels “Für mehr Tierschutz”. Deutscher Tierschutzbund ev: Bonn, Germany. [Title translation: Criteria catalogue for an animal-friendly husbandry and handling of growing pigs within the German animal welfare label ‘increasing animal welfare’]Google Scholar
Veissier, I, Winckler, C, Velarde, A, Butterworth, A, Dalmau, A and Keeling, LJ 2013 Development of welfare meas-ures and protocols for the collection of data on farms or at slaughter. In: Blokhuis, H, Miele, M, Veissier, I and Jones, B (eds) Improving Farm Animal Welfare: Science and Society Working togeth-er: The Welfare Quality Approach pp 115–141. Wageningen Academic Publishers: Wageningen, The Netherlands. http://dx.doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-770-7_6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velarde, AG 2007 On-farm Monitoring of Pig Welfare. Wageningen Academic Publishers: AE Wageningen, The Netherlands. http://dx.doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-591-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Venables, WN and Smith, DM 2010 The R development core team, an introduction to R. The R Development Core Team 2: 1–90Google Scholar
Welfare Quality® 2009 Welfare Quality® applied to growing and finishing pigs. In: Dalmau, A, Velarde, A, Scott, K, Edwards, S, Veissier, I, Keeling, I and Butterworth, I (eds) Welfare Quality® Assessment Protocol for Pigs. Welfare Quality® Consortium Lelystad: Wageningen, The NetherlandsGoogle Scholar
Wemelsfelder, F and Millard, F 2009 Qualitative behaviour assessment. In: Forkman, B and Keeling, L (eds) Welfare Quality Reports pp 213–219. SLU Service/Reproenheten: Uppsala, SwedenGoogle Scholar
Winckler, C, Brinkmann, J and Glatz, J 2007 Long-term con-sistency of selected animal-related welfare parameters in dairy farms. Animal Welfare 16: 197–199Google Scholar
Windschnurer, I, Boivin, X and Waiblinger, S 2009 Reliability of an avoidance distance test for the assessment of animal's responsiveness to humans and a preliminary investigation of its association with farmer's attitudes on bull fattening farms. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 117: 117–127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2008.12.013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wirtz, M and Caspar, F 2002 Beurteileruebereinstimmung und Beurteilerreliabilitaet. Hogrefe: Goettingen, Germany. [Title trans-lation: Observer agreement and observer reliability]Google Scholar