AVA Conference Adelaide 2016

Some animal welfare problems, such as lameness in dairy cattle, tail biting in pigs and injurious pecking in hens, exist of farms due to a complex mix of management and husbandry factors. These issues present a) technical challenges in the form of how to best solve the difficulty and b) motivational challenges in making this happen. Initial research projects working on these challenges focussed on the technical aspects and produced husbandry advisory tools that aimed to quantify the relative risk and therefore priority for each potential intervention. Whilst technically valid, these approaches that relied upon a top-down knowledge transfer approach, had minimal impact on existing practice. Subsequent projects (including the Healthy Feet Project) explored techniques such as facilitation and social marketing to stimulate change. In addition to smarter communication techniques some issues can be resolved by introducing market-place (or even legislation) requirements. Examples of the later include risk factors for injurious pecking that have been introduced into certification scheme requirements