sheep welfare in winter pasturing: first results in French temperate conditions - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2016

sheep welfare in winter pasturing: first results in French temperate conditions

Résumé

ID : 87 Sheep welfare in winter pasturing: first results in French te mperate conditions Mialon, M.M. 1 , Brule, A. 2 , Pottier E. 2 , Boissy, A. 1 , Gautier D. 3 , Boivin, X. 1 , 1 INRA – UMRH1213 Theix – 63122 St Genes -Champanelle, France 2 IDELE – 149 rue de Bercy – 75595 Paris cedex 12, France 3 CIIRPO – 87800 St Priest Ligoure, France Background: Longer periods of grazing, including the winter season, is a recognized solution to limit production costs for intensive sheep rearing systems. Prolonged winter pasturing nevertheless can jeopardize animal welfare. Given the absence of validated tools for assessing the welfare of sheep at pasture, animal - based measures need to be developed. Methods: During winter 2014- 2015, a survey was conducted on 46 farms throughout France, all specialised on Romane sheep an emergent popular breed in France. Winter -housing was on pasture for half of the farms and in barn for the other half. The animal -based indicators to assess welfare (Mialon et al, 2012) were inspired from the four principles of Welfare Quality : good feeding, good housing, good healt h and appropriate behaviour. Most measures for the first three principles were scored at the individual level on 30 ewes per farm. The fourth principle grouped responsiveness to handling and assessment of emotional state. The responsiveness to handling was assessed at individual level: an observer attempted to catch the head of each ewe placed in a race. The emotional state was assessed at group level with the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment protocol performed before and after forced moving. Results: In th e French conditions of this study (normal winter (1981- 2010): periods of snow and cold temperatures), very few problems of animal welfare (Table) were observed, no more severe in pasturing compared to barn conditions. The ewes seemed more confident at past ure but also more affected by forced moving. Conclusions: These results are promising according to sheep welfare in temperate winter pasturing. There is a need to complete the protocol by including few robust resource -based measures and to implement it on a larger scale (number of farms and ewes per farm, weather conditions, other categories of animals and other breeds).
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-02738578 , version 1 (02-06-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02738578 , version 1
  • PRODINRA : 368850

Citer

Marie-Madeleine Mialon, Anne Brulé, Éric Pottier, Alain Boissy, Xavier Boivin, et al.. sheep welfare in winter pasturing: first results in French temperate conditions. CommeSteps to sustainable livestock Conference, Jan 2016, Bristol, France. ⟨hal-02738578⟩
22 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More