Using longitudinal syndromic surveillance to describe small ruminant health in village production systems in Myanmar

Animal-Based Indicators for On-Farm Welfare Assessment in Goats

Simple Summary

Welfare assessments for animals require the use of specific indicators. These indicators should be practical and easy to use in an on-farm environment while correctly reflecting on the animals’ welfare. Our aim was to review literature on such indicators for goats, as small ruminants have not received as much attention as other farm animals in the field of welfare assessment. Some indicators such as lameness are already well investigated and suitable for use in goat welfare assessments. Others, for example, lying behaviour, need more research, as the limited amount of knowledge restrains the information on validity or usefulness. As in other animals, the welfare of goats has become an increasingly important issue in public discourse. Our overview on indicators aids in developing tools to measure and improve the welfare of goats.

Abstract

This review describes the current state of knowledge relating to scientific literature on welfare indicators for goats. Our aim was to provide an overview of animal-based indicators for on-farm welfare assessments. We performed a literature search and extracted 96 relevant articles by title, abstract, and full-text screening. Out of these articles, similar indicators were aggregated to result in a total of 32 welfare indicators, some of which were covered in multiple articles, others in only a single one. We discuss a set of three established assessment protocols containing these indicators, as well as all individual indicators which were covered in more than one article. As single indicators, we identified lameness, body condition score (BCS), qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA), and human–animal relationship (HAR) tests with substantial evidence for sufficient validity to assess welfare in goats. A multitude of indicators (e.g., hair coat condition) was studied less intensively but was successfully used for welfare assessments. For some indicators (e.g., oblivion, lying behaviour), we highlight the need for future research to further validate them or to optimise their use in on-farm welfare assessments. Moreover, further investigations need to include kids, bucks, and meat and fibre goats, as well as extensively kept goats as the literature predominantly focuses on dairy goats in intensive production systems.

Refining livestock mortality indicators: a systematic review

Background: Livestock mortality impacts farmer livelihoods and household nutrition. Capturing trends in livestock mortality at localised or national levels is essential to planning, monitoring and evaluating interventions and programs aimed at decreasing mortality rates. However, livestock mortality data is disparate, and indicators used have not been standardised. This review aims to assess livestock mortality indicator definitions reported in literature, and define the ages where mortality has greatest impact. Methods: A systematic review was conducted, limited to articles focussed on mortality of cattle, sheep and goats. Peer-reviewed articles in Web of Science until year 2020 were assessed for inclusion of age-based definitions for mortality indicators and data on age distribution of mortality. Indicator definitions for each species were collated and similar terms and age groups most targeted were compared. The cumulative distribution of age at mortality was compared across studies graphically where possible; otherwise, age patterns for mortality were collated. Results: Most studies reported mortality risk rather than rate, and there was little agreement between indicator definitions used in the literature. The most common indicators reported were perinatal and neonatal mortality in cattle, and for perinatal, neonatal and pre-weaning mortality indicators for sheep and goats. Direct comparison of age distribution of mortality was only possible for cattle, which found that approximately 80% of all mortalities within the first 12 months had occurred by six months of age. A significant finding of the study is the variation in age groups for which mortality is reported, which impedes the comparison of mortality risk across studies, particularly for sheep and goats. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the importance and value of standardising mortality risk indicators for general use, including a young stock mortality risk indicator measuring mortality in the highest risk period of birth to six months of age in cattle, sheep and goats.

Using farmer observations for animal health syndromic surveillance: Participation and performance of an online enhanced passive surveillance system

The challenge of animal health surveillance is to provide the information necessary to appropriately inform disease prevention and control activities within the constraints of available resources. Syndromic surveillance of farmers' disease observations can improve animal health data capture from extensive livestock farming systems, especially where data are not otherwise being systematically collected or when data on confirmed aetiological diagnoses are unavailable at the disease level. As it is rarely feasible to recruit a truly random sample of farmers to provide observational reports, directing farmer sampling to align with the surveillance objectives is a reasonable and practical approach. As long as potential bias is recognised and managed, farmers who will report reliably can be desirable participants in a surveillance system. Thus, one early objective of a surveillance program should be to identify characteristics associated with reporting behaviour. Knowledge of the demographic and managerial characteristics of good reporters can inform efforts to recruit additional farms into the system or aid understanding of potential bias of system reports. We describe the operation of a farmer syndromic surveillance system in Victoria, Australia, over its first two years from 2014 to 2016. Survival analysis and classification and regression tree analysis were used to identify farm level factors associated with 'reliable' participation (low non-response rates in longitudinal reporting). Response rate and timeliness were not associated with whether farmers had disease to report, or with different months of the year. Farmers keeping only sheep were the most reliable and timely respondents. Farmers < 43 years of age had lower response rates than older farmers. Farmers with veterinary qualifications and those working full-time on-farm provided less timely reports than other educational backgrounds and farmers who worked part-time on-farm. These analyses provide a starting point to guide recruitment of participants for surveillance of farmers' observations using syndromic surveillance, and provide examples of strengths and weaknesses of syndromic surveillance systems for extensively-managed livestock. Once farm characteristics associated with reliable participation are known, they can be incorporated into surveillance system design in accordance with the objectives of the system.