This paper describes the perspectives of stakeholders within the North American dairy industry on key issues affecting the welfare of dairy cattle. Five heterogeneous focus groups were held during a dairy cattle welfare meeting in Guelph, Canada in October 2012. Each group contained between 7 and 10 participants and consisted of a mix of dairy producers, veterinarians, academics, students, and dairy industry specialists. The 1-h facilitated discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis of the resulting transcripts showed that participants (...) across all stakeholder categories identified lameness as the most important welfare issue facing dairy cattle. Other prominent issues of concern included cow comfort, disease, on-farm mortality, stockmanship, painful procedures, injuries, cull cow management, calf management, and restriction of behavioural freedoms. Participants typically gave several reasons for why they considered issues problematic. Underlying reasons were grouped according to animal-centered concerns [at both the individual and at the herd level ] and industry-centered concerns . This analysis identified areas of shared concern among diverse stakeholder groups, which should aid in the development of standards and policies that satisfy stakeholders within and external to the dairy industry. (shrink)

Animal welfare in pig production is frequently a topic of debate and is sensitive in nature. This debate is partly due to differences in values, forms, convictions, interests and knowledge among the stakeholders that constitute differences among their frames of reference with respect to pigs and their welfare. Differences in frames of reference by stakeholder groups are studied widely, but not specifically with respect to animal behaviour or welfare. We explored this phenomenon using a qualitative behaviour assessment . Participating stakeholders (...) were classified into two expert groups consisting of pig farmers and animal scientists and a lay-group consisting of urban citizens . The stakeholders were asked to observe the behaviour of a specific pig in each of the nine videos and to assign a score for each video using 21 predefined terms describing the mood, such as ‘happy’ or ‘irritated’. They were asked to complete two additional questionnaires to obtain information on their frames of reference. Results from the QBA showed that the pig farmers observed the behaviour of pigs more positively than the urban citizens and the animal scientists. This was evident from the consistently higher scores on the positive terms to assess pig behaviour. The questionnaires revealed that the farmers had a different frames of reference regarding pigs and different understanding of welfare, which might explain the differences in assessment. In a follow-up stakeholder workshop, which focussed on differences in observation, QBA showed to be an effective tool to stimulate mutual learning among stakeholders, which is necessary to find shared solutions. (shrink)