Tag Archives: Project

Tail biting app (advisory tool)

The Tail Biting “WebHAT” (Web based Husbandry Advisory Tool) is a website designed to be an interactive resource providing information about the key risks for tail biting in pigs and practical suggestions to help reduce these risks on-farm.

Taking information from evidence-based sources and scientific literature, this WebHAT identifies a number of risks associated with tail biting (a key pig behaviour), and can be used to generate a report of prioritised, key tail-biting risks found on a farm and obtain suggestions to address the specific risks identified

You can access the WebHAT tool here.

Tail biting pigs

Is it possible to get rid of tail docking

Is it possible to get rid of tail docking? By Vincent ter Beek 2017. Article in PigProgress about FareWellDock.

Tail docking is a well-known practice in pig production, but it is also heavily criticised. An international team of researchers dived into the topic and wondered what its exact effects are on pigs – and what alternatives there are to avoid tail biting….

Read more @ PigProgress.

Note: This article is an approved summary of the Executive Summary which was published earlier this year at http://farewelldock.eu. In future issues of Pig Progress, to be published later this year, several participating researchers in this project will delve deeper into the individual topics they encountered.

Animal Transport Guides – Project & Newsletter

Animal Transport Guidelines Project

The European Commission, DG Sante project aims to improve animal welfare around transport. The project will develop and disseminate Guides to Good and Best Practice for animals transported within Europe and to third countries for slaughter, fattening and breeding. Guides will be developed for cattle, horses, pigs, poultry and sheep transport. The project started in May 2015 and will finish by the end of 2018.

The project is divided into 5 tasks
•Task 1: Collection
Collect and collate appropriate best practices implemented and supported by scientific evidence
•Task 2 and 3: Development
Develop practical guidelines with those that will use it
•Task 4: Dissemination
Disseminate these guidelines through the networks of the main European stakeholder groups involved
•Task 5: Verification
To verify if the new transport guidelines reached the end-users

See the project website for more information (e.g. guides, factsheets and roadshows; available in 8 languages: English, German, French, Greek, Romanian, Polish, Spanish and Italian).

You can also sign up for the newsletter of the Animal Transport Guidelines project.

 

Factsheets FareWellDock project

The FareWellDock factsheets are out. Below you find the cover factsheet as well as the factsheets on tail docking, enrichment, health and the prediction of tail biting. This post shows images of the English versions, and  links to the pdf version of the English factsheets, as well as all factsheets in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish. Separate pages are available directly showing the factsheets in the other languages (Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish).

Cover factsheet

Cover factsheet in English

Factsheet cover English (pdf)
Factsheet cover Danish (pdf)
Factsheet cover Dutch (pdf)
Factsheet cover Finnish (pdf)
Factsheet cover French (pdf)
Factsheet cover Italian (pdf)
Factsheet cover Norwegian (pdf)
Factsheet cover Swedish (pdf)

Tail docking

Factsheet 1 Tail docking English
Factsheet 1 Tail docking English (pdf)
Factsheet 1 Danish (pdf)
Factsheet 1 Dutch (pdf)
Factsheet 1 Finnish (pdf)
Factsheet 1 French (pdf)
Factsheet 1 Italian (pdf)
Factsheet 1 Norwegian
Factsheet 1 Swedish (pdf)

Enrichment

Factsheet 2 Enrichment English
Factsheet 2 Enrichment English (pdf)
Factsheet 2 Danish (pdf)
Factsheet 2 Dutch (pdf)
Factsheet 2 Finnish (pdf)
Factsheet 2 French (pdf)
Factsheet 2 Italian (pdf)
Factsheet 2 Norwegian (pdf)
Factsheet 2 Swedish (pdf)

Health

Factsheet 3 Health English
Factsheet 3 Health English (pdf)
Factsheet 3 Danish (pdf)
Factsheet 3 Dutch (pdf)
Factsheet 3 Finnish (pdf)
Factsheet 3 French (pdf)
Factsheet 3 Italian (pdf)
Factsheet 3 Norwegian (pdf)
Factsheet 3 Swedish (pdf)

Prediction of tail biting

Factsheet 4 Prediction English

Factsheet 4 Prediction English (pdf)
Factsheet 4 Danish (pdf)
Factsheet 4 Dutch (pdf)
Factsheet 4 Finnish (pdf)
Factsheet 4 French (pdf)
Factsheet 4 Italian (pdf)
Factsheet 4 Norwegian (pdf)
Factsheet 4 Swedish (pdf)

FareWellDock publication list

At present the FareWellDock website has 97 blog posts (like this one).

We are drafting our final report and finalising our publication list. Here you can find the FareWellDock publication list. At present we are heading towards 28 peer-reviewed scientific publications, 6 book chapters, 35 conference contributions, 16+ farm-magazine articles, 14 training sessions and several other communication activities (internet and radio).

FareWellDock logo

 

Overview of FareWellDock project meetings

Startup meeting Helsinki, FI (live), 5-6 Nov. 2013
2nd project meeting (video conference), 27-3-14
3rd project meeting (video conference), 9-10-14
4th project meeting Paris, FR (live), 8/9-4-2015
5th project meeting (video conference), 7-10-2016
6th project meeting (video conference), 16-3-2016
7th project meeting Edinburgh (satellite meeting ISAE), 12-7-2016
8th project meeting Vejle, DK (live), 27/28-10-2016
9th project meeting (video conference), 16-1-2017
1st FareWellDock-network meeting Aarhus (satellite meeting ISAE), 7-8-2017

Participants of the FareWellDock meeting in Vejle, Denmark

Last FareWellDock meeting (videoconference)

FareWellDock’s final project meeting was a videoconference call dd Januari 16, 2017. The meeting was used to fine-tune final deliverables, esp. the factsheets and final report for ANIHWA. We decided to add local contacts to the translated factsheets, and to use the executive summary later to inform farm magazines about the FareWellDock results.

We also briefly discussed initiatives concerning the follow-up of the project, in particular the farewelldock network and the first post-project meeting.

This meeting is scheduled as a satellite meeting to the ISAE meeting in Aarhus on Aug 7, 2017. It will be a joint meeting with the GroupHouseNet project, and we are looking for sponsors to support the meeting, which will discuss mechanisms underlying tail biting in pigs and feather pecking in poultry, as well as aspects of early development of these abnormal behaviours.

Picture of the meeting

German research activities on tail biting

Information about current tail biting projects in Germany can be found in an excel sheet which can be downloaded here from the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) homepage.

The German tail biting projects have been summarised in the review “Tail docking in pigs – status quo in Germany”. If you are interested in this article please contact Sabine Dippel (sabine . dippel @ fli . de).

In order to improve knowledge exchange across borders, the FLI is looking for further information about tail and ear biting projects in other countries. If you are or have been involved in such projects, please download the excel list, enter your data on the sheet “other countries” and send the updated file to Christina Veit (Christina . veit @ fli . de). In the near future it is planned to set up a public online database into which information from the Excel list will be transferred.

One of the outcomes from German research activities about tail biting is a scoring key for pigs agreed on by the various people involved across Germany: the DSBS. The scoring key for tail and ear lesions including pictures can be downloaded here (see screenshot below).

Scoring key DSBS

Online Training Improves Understanding of Pig Welfare Legislation

A recent research paper has reported a positive effect of an online training tool on participants’ understanding of taildocking and enrichment legislation, as well as risk factors for tail biting. The training tool was aimed at official inspectors and others involved in enforcement of legislative requirements on pig farms. The research was a collaboration of 15 researchers from 9 EU countries, led by the University of Bristol, UK. The online training tool is free to use and is available in 7 different languages: English, French, German, Polish, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. It can be accessed here:

Click this link to access the EUWelNet Training Tool on pig enrichment and tail docking.

Hothersall, B., Whistance, L., Zedlacher, H., Algers, B., Andersson, E., Bracke, M., Courboulay, V., Ferrari, P., Leeb, C., Mullan, S., Nowicki, J., Meunier-Salaun, M-C., Schwarz, T., Stadig, L. & Main, D. 2016 Standardising the assessment of environmental enrichment and tail-docking legal requirements for finishing pigs in Europe. Animal Welfare 25:499-509.

Abstract

An online training package providing a concise synthesis of the scientific data underpinning EU legislation on enrichment and taildocking of pigs was produced in seven languages, with the aim of improving consistency of professional judgements regarding legislation compliance on farms. In total, 158 participants who were official inspectors, certification scheme assessors and advisors from 16 EU countries completed an initial test and an online training package. Control group participants completed a second identical test before, and Training group participants after, viewing the training. In Section 1 of the test participants rated the importance of modifying environmental enrichment defined in nine scenarios from 1 (not important) to 10 (very important). Training significantly increased participants’ overall perception of the need for change. Participants then rated nine risk factors for tail-biting from 1 (no risk) to 10 (high risk). After training scores were better correlated with risk rankings already described by scientists. Scenarios relating to tail-docking and management were then described. Training significantly increased the proportion of respondents correctly identifying that a farm without tail lesions should stop tail-docking. Finally, participants rated the  importance of modifying enrichment in three further scenarios. Training increased ratings in all three. The pattern of results indicated that participants’ roles influenced scores but overall the training improved: i) recognition of enrichments that, by virtue of their type or use by pigs, may be insufficient to achieve legislation compliance; ii) knowledge on risk factors for tail-biting; and iii) recognition of when routine tail-docking was occurring.

EUWelNet Training Tool enrichment and tail docking

Note that the training tool is being used in Poland to train animal science students, farm assurance in the UK has shown recent interest in using the tool, and the Austrian pig health service is compiling a brochure based on EUWelNet on tail biting/enrichment material.