The UK’s Farm Animal Welfare Council released a landmark report late last year highlighting the welfare issues that arise from disease in the major species of farmed animals. It makes recommendations to improve animal welfare through improved animal health at an individual, farm, industry and national level.
In 2009, the government-established independent council established a working group to review farm animal disease and welfare, and its report covers poultry, cattle, sheep and pigs. The purpose of the report is to offer advice to the UK government, but the council hopes that it will stimulate discussion among farmers, the wider food industry, citizens and the consumer.
In addition to specific recommendations, some of which are detailed below, the report has identified a number of themes for improving animal welfare through improved health management over the next 20 years.
Overarching themes
There should be greater use of preventive health planning and production management, the Farm Animal Welfare Council says, with the veterinarian the key external advisor. Veterinarians should have greater involvement in the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of sick animals, ensuring that they are not left untreated or treated inappropriately. There needs to be greater research into how this can be done cost effectively.
There also needs to be continuing professional development of all connected with farmed livestock, with a particular focus on linking physical and mental health and a requirement for demonstrating competency in nursing and technical ability to administer medicines and vaccines.
There should also be provision of appropriate resources to improve preventive healthcare, including greater use of new technologies, land management techniques, building design, genetic procedures. A balance of legislation, self-regulation and effective partnership also maximizes the uptake of opportunities to improve health and welfare. A health and welfare stewardship scheme could be a central driver for change.
Additionally, there needs to be an appreciation by all stakeholders that improved welfare through better health also delivers for other policy areas, like productivity, emission reduction, food safety standards and reduction in energy consumption.
Impact of livestock industry on disease, welfare
The Farm Animal Welfare Council makes specific recommendations that the government and industry should ensure. The government and industry should develop interdisciplinary research and knowledge exchange initiatives to strengthen the link between consideration of the mental and physical aspects of health in animals. Fundamental research is needed to measure and validate measures of mental health in animals.
A transparent discussion should be held that includes all parties about the likely causes of negative animal health effects from modern livestock farming, with farmed animal welfare at the heart of discussions.
The farming industry and the veterinary profession should ensure that livestock keepers and stockpeople are aware of stresses on the animal, exposure to pathogens and poor environmental factors that can lead to diseases and how to prevent these wherever possible. Further research on the costs and welfare impact of disease should be carried out by the government and industry to encourage a greater focus on improved welfare through disease prevention.
Surveillance and monitoring of disease, welfare
The report’s authors encourage an actively coordinated approach for both exotic and endemic diseases and animal health and welfare.
Support for disease surveillance and monitoring should be increased by demonstrating how these drivers and goals are shared by multiple stakeholders. The government and livestock sectors should consider the data that are currently collected on animal health and welfare and discuss what are most effective for national, sector and herd/flock management and how this can effectively be shared to the benefit of all.
All livestock sectors should determine those infectious and non-infectious diseases of importance within or across sectors that could benefit from coordinated surveillance, and they should consider whether industry could usefully coordinate such programs. This should preferably be done on a nationwide level.
Assurance and retailer scheme data should be shared at the national level, with appropriate safeguards on the confidentiality of sources, to enable their use in more strategic disease management initiatives. In addition, these data provide the possibility to benchmark industries and thus set targets for improvement and to assess their success.
All insurance schemes should consider using both resource- and animal-based inspection criteria. Animal-based criteria should incentivize improved health and welfare through fewer inspections resulting from earned recognition or premium payments.
Sector bodies working with specialist veterinary groups should ensure that the value of effective surveillance is fully communicated to the industry and work to coordinate data where appropriate. The government and industry need to facilitate standardization of appropriate surveillance and diagnostic tools to enable veterinary advisors to establish an accurate diagnosis of a farm’s health that can be benchmarked.
Disease prevention
The livestock sector should work with the government to formulate movement restriction policies that balance the needs of livestock sectors to function effectively with the requirements for disease control. The government needs to clarify roles and responsibilities for management of the welfare of farmed animals in disease outbreaks where extended restrictions are in place. The government should also with the industry to develop strategies that minimize the extent and duration of movement restrictions in the event of a notifiable disease outbreak.
Industry bodies should set up a voluntary code to promote disease testing before importing livestock and germoplasm and to ensure special precautions if importing from areas with known diseases. The development of decision support tools by the industry, which provide a common basis for introduction of new stock, would quantify and reduce risk.
Government and industry bodies should work together to identify and prioritize potential diseases for national elimination and should implement the necessary actions when justified. The industry should evaluate the opportunities for voluntary elimination schemes and the government could facilitate such projects through funding.
The declaration of the health status of an individual farm to an agreed standard should be encouraged by industry. All farms should be involved in farm health and production management in collaboration with their veterinary advisor and management team. This should be the daily basis by which the flock/herd is managed and the management evolves as health and production demands change. A proactive model of preventive care should include a minimum number of visits by the veterinarian to the farm each year.
Further research and knowledge exchange is required to demonstrate the value of farm health planning and production management for individual herd/flock owners. Where veterinary input is apparently uneconomic, studies should test whether this is true and if so, novel methods to assess veterinary expertise should be considered.
Supply chain initiatives are required to provide a more consistent return and to incentivize health and welfare improvements.
The government should work in partnership with the industry for the most effective use of vaccines in control and elimination programs. Vaccine development that is clearly uneconomic for pharmaceutical companies but could make a significant improvement to animal health and welfare could be supported by the government.
Disease treatment
Farmer/stockperson disease awareness and recognition skills should be improved through awareness campaigns, and the report’s authors argue that the veterinarian has an important role in educating and training stockpeople.
Treatment protocols, success rates and resistance profiles should be part of herd/flock health planning. The development of more pen-side diagnostics, providing rapid, specific and sensitive results to support clinical observation, is an area for research that needs support from the government and the industry.
The government and industry should work together to develop systems which demonstrate antibiotic stewardship. The clinical freedom of veterinarians to prescribe appropriately for each disease situation should be preserved, while they work toward antibiotic reduction. More support should be given by the government and industry to research into endemic bacterial diseases to discover better ways of tackling these infections, thus improving animal welfare and reducing antibiotic use.
Where care and treatment for sick animals is unavailable or ineffective, they should be euthanized promptly and humanely. All flock or herd planning must include a farm-specific plan to decide on when an animal should be euthanized. This plan should at least document where additional assistance can be sought to make the final decision to euthanize the animal and what means should be used to kill it. The species specific veterinary societies could usefully assist in the updating of euthanasia guidelines in line with latest regulations.
On every farm, an appropriate number of stockpeople should be trained and able to euthanize stock of all ages to ensure that euthanasia is never delayed. Where this is inappropriate, holdings should be able to demonstrate the availability of trained personnel to respond to emergencies within the approved time limit.
Future strategies to improve health and welfare
The governments should, as a public service, take responsibility to reduce the impact of endemic disease on the health and welfare of animals. Support is necessary in a guardianship role to monitor, enable, encourage and promote continual reduction in the priority diseases that impact health and welfare.
Governments should make support available through health and welfare stewardship programs and should ensure that improvements in animal welfare through animal health initiatives are recognized and rewarded.
Retailers should encourage the adoption of outcome measures of health and welfare in their supply chain, using measures that are industry standards to prevent duplication of effort. Processors should give postmortem data to the farmer to inform the veterinary health plan.
Additionally, retailers and processors should take responsibility for ensuring their supply base is adequately funded and prepared to deliver sustained proper health and welfare and that improved standards of health and welfare are appropriately rewarded.
The animal keeper has primary responsibility to ensure that sick animals are nursed and treated appropriately or euthanized immediately if is apparent that further treatment is inappropriate. Where medicines are used, the veterinarian has to ensure that appropriate treatment is given. This is a complex area, and it is recommended that that the efficacy of treatment is recorded. It is also recommended that veterinarians debate the ethics and practicalities of this situation.
The government and industry should support suggested research and development opportunities that will benefit farm animal health and welfare. All stakeholders should take a proactive approach to improving farm animal health and welfare in the future.
