The vast majority of piglets reared in the European Union (EU) and worldwide is tail docked to reduce the risk of being tail bitten, even though EU animal welfare legislation bans routine tail docking. Many conventional herds experience low levels of tail biting among tail docked pigs, however it is not known, what the prevalence would have been had the pigs not been tail docked. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of tail lesions between docked and undocked pigs in a conventional piggery in Denmark with very low prevalence of tail biting among tail docked pigs. The study included 1922 DanAvl Duroc×(Landrace×Large White) female and castrated male pigs (962 docked and 960 undocked). Docked and undocked pigs were housed under the same conditions in the same room but in separate pens with 20 (±0.03) pigs/pen. Pigs had ad libitum access to commercial diets in a feed dispenser. Manipulable material in the form of chopped straw was provided daily on the floor (~10 g/pig per day), and each pen had two vertically placed soft wood boards. From weaning to slaughter, tail wounds (injury severity and freshness) were scored every 2nd week. No clinical signs of injured tails were observed within the tail docked group, whereas 23.0% of the undocked pigs got a tail lesion. On average, 4.0% of the pigs with undocked tails had a tail lesion on tail inspection days. More pens with tail lesions were observed among pigs weighing 30 to 60 kg (34.3%; P<0.05) than in pens with pigs weighing 7 to 30 kg (13.0%) and 60 to 90 kg (12.8%). Removal of pigs to a hospital pen was more likely in undocked pens (P<0.05, 47.7% undocked pens and 22.9% docked pens). Finally, abattoir meat inspection data revealed more tail biting remarks in undocked pigs (P<0.001). In conclusion, this study suggests that housing pigs with intact tails in conventional herds with very low prevalence of tail biting among tail docked pigs, will increase the prevalence of pigs with tail lesions considerably, and pig producers will need more hospital pens. Abattoir data indicate that tail biting remarks from meat inspection data severely underestimate on-farm prevalence of tail lesions.

Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is a useful tool to modify animal feed preferences, allowing the implementation of selective grazing to control weeds in tree orchards without damaging the trees or affecting fruit production. LiCl is commonly used for inducing CTA. However, studies investigating the long-term persistence of CTA by LiCl in small ruminants are scarce. With this aim, we evaluated the efficiency of two LiCl doses (AV1 and AV2, 175 and 200 mg/kg BW, respectively) and a control (C, 0 mg/kg BW) for averting non-lactating dairy goats (n=15) to olive tree leaves. Aversion induction was reinforced on day 9 in those goats that consumed >10 g of olive leaves. Mid-term aversion effectiveness was assessed by five double-choice feeding tests (days 16, 24, 31, 38 and 53) of 30 min each, where 100 g of olive leaves were offered side-by-side with 390 g of Italian rye-grass (as-fed). Long-term aversion effectiveness was assessed in C, AV1 and AV2 goats by grazing for 30 min in paddocks with a simulated olive tree (days 59, 90, 121, 182 and 420). Moreover, C and AV2 goats were compared under on-field conditions (days 143, 211 and 363) in a commercial olive grove also for 30 min. The CTA proved to be established with a single LiCl dose in all goats and persisted for 4 and 55 days in AV1 and AV2 goats, respectively (P<0.001). However, 80% AV1 and 20% AV2 goats needed to be reinforced at day 9. When grazing under simulated olive tree and commercial olive grove conditions, the CTA goats, especially AV2 group, avoided the contact with the olive trees and minimally used a bipedal stance to feed leaves, than control goats. On average, time proportion spent consuming olive leaves and sprouts was much greater (P<0.05) for C (50.7±9.1%) than for AV1 (14.4±3.9%) and AV2 (3.1±0.9%). In conclusion, the 200 mg LiCl/kg BW dose was more effective than the 175 mg LiCl/kg BW dose for inducing an effective long-term CTA to olive tree leaves in goats.

To sustainably contribute to food security of a growing and richer world population, livestock production systems are challenged to increase production levels while reducing environmental impact, being economically viable, and socially responsible. Knowledge about the sustainability performance of current livestock production systems may help to formulate strategies for future systems. Our study provides a systematic overview of differences between conventional and organic livestock production systems on a broad range of sustainability aspects and animal species available in peer-reviewed literature. Systems were compared on economy, productivity, environmental impact, animal welfare and public health. The review was limited to dairy cattle, beef cattle, pigs, broilers and laying hens, and to Europe, North America and New Zealand. Results per indicators are presented as in the articles without performing additional calculations. Out of 4171 initial search hits, 179 articles were analysed. Studies varied widely in indicators, research design, sample size and location and context. Quite some studies used small samples. No study analysed all aspects of sustainability simultaneously. Conventional systems had lower labour requirements per unit product, lower income risk per animal, higher production per animal per time unit, higher reproduction numbers, lower feed conversion ratio, lower land use, generally lower acidification and eutrophication potential per unit product, equal or better udder health for cows and equal or lower microbiological contamination. Organic systems had higher income per animal or full time employee, lower impact on biodiversity, lower eutrophication and acidification potential per unit land, equal or lower likelihood of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and higher beneficial fatty acid levels in cow milk. For most sustainability aspects, sometimes conventional and sometimes organic systems performed better, except for productivity, which was consistently higher in conventional systems. For many aspects and animal species, more data are needed to conclude on a difference between organic and conventional livestock production systems.

Recently with limited information from intensified grain-based farming systems in developed countries, livestock production is challenged as being huge consumer of freshwater. The smallholder mixed crop-livestock (MCL) system which is predominant in developing countries like Ethiopia, is maintained with considerable contributions of crop residues (CR) to livestock feeding. Inclusion of CR is expected to reduce the water requirement for feed production resulting improvement in livestock water productivity (LWP). This study was conducted to determine feed water productivity (FWP) and LWP in the MCL system. A multistage sampling procedure was followed to select farmers from different wealth status. Wealth status dictated by ownership of key farm resources such as size of cropland and livestock influenced the magnitude of livestock outputs, FWP and LWP. Significant difference in feed collected, freshwater evapotranspired, livestock outputs and water productivity (WP) were observed between wealth groups, where wealthier are relatively more advantaged. Water productivity of CR and grazing land (GL) analyzed separately showed contrasting differences where better-off gained more on CR, whereas vice versa on GL. These counterbalancing of variations may justify the non-significant difference in total FWP between wealth groups. Despite observed differences, low WP on GL indicates the need of interventions at all levels. The variation in WP of CR is attributed to availability of production factors which restrained the capacity of poor farmers most. A linear relationship between the proportion of CR in livestock feed and FWP was evident, but the relationship with LWP was not likely linear. As CR are inherently low in digestibility and nutritive values which have an effect on feed conversion into valuable livestock products and services, increasing share of CR beyond an optimum level is not a viable option to bring improvements in livestock productivity as expressed in terms of LWP. Ensuring land security, installing proper grazing management, improved forage seed supply and application of soil and water conservation are expected to enhance WP on GL. Given the relationship of production factors with crop biomass and associated WP, interventions targeted to improve provision of inputs, credit, extension and training support due emphasis to the poor would increase CR yield and reduce part of water use for feed production. Optimizing feed value of CR with treatment and supplementation, following water efficient forage production methods and maintenance of healthy productive animals are expected to amplify the benefits from livestock and eventually improve LWP.

Livestock farming is an essential activity in many rural areas, where it contributes to the maintenance of soil fertility and farmland biodiversity, as well as to a set of social public goods including food security, rural vitality and culture. However, livestock sustainability assessments tend to focus primarily on environmental and economic dimensions; therefore, these valuations might be limited because they do not consider the complete set of associated goods and services (GS). Hence, a need exists to recognise the multiple contributions provided by livestock to human well-being and society. The objective of this study was to analyse the provision of multiple GS derived from livestock across regions in France and empirically demonstrate sets of GS that repeatedly appeared together. We designated these multiple GS provided by livestock as contributions to productive, environmental, rural vitality and cultural benefits that human populations derive directly or indirectly from livestock agroecosystems. First, we combined expert knowledge with results of a literature review to define a bundle of GS provided by livestock. We then described indicators that quantified each good or service and screened national databases to determine the availability of supporting data. Finally, we assessed the GS and their relationships (synergies or trade-offs) on a nation-wide gradient in France at the department level (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 3). Four main categories of GS were considered: provisioning (e.g. food quantity and quality), environmental quality (e.g. biodiversity, landscape heterogeneity, water quality), rural vitality (e.g. employment, rural dynamism) and culture (e.g. gastronomy and landscape heritage). Four major types of GS bundles were identified, which suggested strong contrasts among French rural areas in terms of the nature of the GS that occurred together and their levels of provision. GS bundles in France had a non-random spatial distribution. This study represents an initial step towards developing a methodology to consider GS bundles provided by livestock. Nonetheless, further research is needed to understand socio-economic, environmental, political and geographic determinants of the composition of GS bundles.

Farm animal genetic resources are threatened worldwide. Participation in markets, while representing a crucial way out of poverty for many smallholders, affects genetic management choices with associated sustainability concerns. This paper proposes a contextualized study of the interactions between markets and animal genetic resources management, in the case of sheep markets in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It focusses on the organization of marketing chains and the valuation of genetic characteristics by value chain actors. Marketing chain characterization was tackled through semi-structured interviews with 25 exporters and 15 butchers, both specialized in sheep. Moreover, revealed preference methods were applied to analyse the impact of animals’ attributes on market pricing. Data were collected from 338 transactions during three different periods: Eid al-Adha, Christmas and New Year period, and a neutral period. The neutral period is understood as a period not close to any event likely to influence the demand for sheep. The results show that physical characteristics such as live weight, height at withers and coat colour have a strong influence on the animals’ prices. Live weight has also had an increasing marginal impact on price. The different markets (local butcher, feasts, export market, sacrifices) represent distinct demands for genetic characteristics, entailing interesting consequences for animal genetic resource management. Any breeding programme should therefore take this diversity into account to allow this sector to contribute better to a sustainable development of the country.