Legal Complexities of Animal Welfare in Australia: Do On-Animal Sensors Offer a Future Option?

Exploration of Extension Research to Promote Genetic Improvement in Cattle Production: Systematic Review

In the cattle industry, tools for genetic improvement play a crucial role in animal selection. The changing circumstances faced by farmers and the significant part agricultural extension plays in these changes must be considered. Despite progress in genetic selection tools and the push for their adoption through extension services, a disconnect persists between the development of new strategies and tools for genetic improvement and their adoption by livestock farmers. This systematic review is designed to globally investigate the methodology and outcomes of extension research aimed at advancing genetic improvement in beef cattle. Adhering to PRISMA guidelines, a search was conducted across four databases for studies published from January 2012 to June 2023. Twenty-one articles were selected and reviewed. The research design in the articles predominantly employed mixed methods, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative approaches. While social factors are acknowledged as influencers in the adoption process, the application of theories or frameworks from social sciences is still in its early stages. To successfully implement extension activities that promote the use of genetic tools in cattle for a specific production region, more participatory research is required where farmers are actively involved.

Exploring the potential for on-animal sensors to detect adverse welfare events: A case study of detecting ewe behaviour prior to vaginal prolapse

Parturition is a critical period for the ewe and lamb, and the incidence of dystocia has known impacts on lamb and ewe welfare and productivity. Current methods of dystocia monitoring are mostly conducted through visual observation. Novel approaches for monitoring have also been suggested, including the application of on-animal sensor technologies for remote surveillance of parturition success. This short communication explores how the use of sensor-based parturition detection models can be applied for detection of adverse and successful parturition events, respectively, in pasture-based sheep (Ovis aries). Specifically, the alert profile of a single ewe that experienced vaginal prolapse is reported and compared with the alert profiles of 13 ewes that experienced typical birth events. Although the ewe that experienced vaginal prolapse exhibited some common precursor alerts similar to ewes that progressed through a typical birth event, the overall alert profile was markedly different for the prolapsed animal, with an increased number of alerts occurring from five days prior to the prolapse event. As successful parturition has significant welfare and productivity outcomes, application and validation of these research findings in a commercial system could greatly improve current methods of welfare monitoring at lambing.

Opportunities to monitor animal welfare using the five freedoms with precision livestock management on rangelands

Advances in technology have led to precision livestock management, a developing research field. Precision livestock management has potential to improve sustainable meat production through continuous, real-time tracking which can help livestock managers remotely monitor and enhance animal welfare in extensive rangeland systems. The combination of global positioning systems (GPS) and accessible data transmission gives livestock managers the ability to locate animals in arduous weather, track animal patterns throughout the grazing season, and improve handling practices. Accelerometers fitted to ear tags or collars have the potential to identify behavioral changes through variation in the intensity of movement that can occur during grazing, the onset of disease, parturition or responses to other environmental and management stressors. The ability to remotely detect disease, parturition, or effects of stress, combined with appropriate algorithms and data analysis, can be used to notify livestock managers and expedite response times to bolster animal welfare and productivity. The “Five Freedoms” were developed to help guide the evaluation and impact of management practices on animal welfare. These freedoms and welfare concerns differ between intensive (i.e., feed lot) and extensive (i.e., rangeland) systems. The provisions of the Five Freedoms can be used as a conceptual framework to demonstrate how precision livestock management can be used to improve the welfare of livestock grazing on extensive rangeland systems.

Responsible robotics design–A systems approach to developing design guides for robotics in pasture-grazed dairy farming

Application of robotics and automation in pasture-grazed agriculture is in an emergent phase. Technology developers face significant challenges due to aspects such as the complex and dynamic nature of biological systems, relative cost of technology versus farm labor costs, and specific market characteristics in agriculture. Overlaying this are socio-ethical issues around technology development, and aspects of responsible research and innovation. There are numerous examples of technology being developed but not adopted in pasture-grazed farming, despite the potential benefits to farmers and/or society, highlighting a disconnect in the innovation system. In this perspective paper, we propose a “responsibility by design” approach to robotics and automation innovation, using development of batch robotic milking in pasture-grazed dairy farming as a case study. The framework we develop is used to highlight the wider considerations that technology developers and policy makers need to consider when envisaging future innovation trajectories for robotics in smart farming. These considerations include the impact on work design, worker well-being and safety, changes to farming systems, and the influences of market and regulatory constraints.

Progress With Livestock Welfare in Extensive Production Systems: Lessons From Australia

The extensive livestock production industries are vital to the national economy of Australia. Continuing improvements to extensively-raised livestock welfare is desirable, necessary and in some situations mandatory, if the social license for animal sourced food and fiber production is to continue sustainably. However, meeting increasingly high welfare standards is challenging. The changing climate in this millennium, has seen the occurrence of two of the most severe drought periods on record in Australia, resulting in complex welfare issues arising from unforeseen disease, trade and environmental catastrophes. The onset of the first drought coincided with an uncontrolled epidemic of ovine paratuberculosis. It ended just prior to a temporary ban on live export of tropical cattle to Indonesia that induced a major market failure and led to severe morbidity and mortality on some beef properties. The second drought period progressed in severity and culminated in the most extreme bushfires recorded, causing unprecedented levels of mortality, morbidity and suffering in farmed animals and wildlife. Temperature extremes have also caused periodic heat-associated or cold-induced hyopthermia losses, requiring increased vigilance and careful management to reduce both temperature-induced stress during transport and the high ovine peri-parturient losses traditionally observed in extensive sheep farming. Several issues remain controversial, including surgical mulesing of wool sheep to manage flystrike, and the continuing live export trade of sheep and cattle. However, in reviewing the increasingly complex welfare challenges for the extensive livestock population industries that are export trade dependent and remain vulnerable to welfare activism, it appears progress has been made. These include development of prescribed livestock welfare Standards and Guidelines and the introduction of the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS) to address export concerns. Further, the sheep mulesing crisis led to improved producer welfare attitudes and practices, including pain management during aversive husbandry procedures that is now occurring globally. Finally, innovations in animal welfare surveillance and assessment, are additional encouraging signs that suggest improving change management of extensive farm animal welfare is occurring that provides lessons well-beyond Australian shores.