Animal welfare is a difficult word. What is a correct definition? Farmers have been caring for the welfare of their animals for centuries, because when the animals in the barn are doing well, it brings them job satisfaction too. “So happy animals, happy farmer!”
In Flanders ( Belgium) Boerenbond and ILVO have designed an animal welfare scan , which the livestock farmer can use on his own farm. This gives him a picture of animal welfare on his farm.
The scan contains so-called animal-related measurements, meaning the animal is central, to visualise animal welfare on your farm in a simple way.
The purpose of this welfare scan:
-Tracking the evolution of animal welfare on your farm over time.
- Benchmarking: comparing welfare measurements of your farm with the rest of the sector.
For a beef farmer, animal welfare is a difficult concept. But by downloading this app " happy animals, happy farmer", he is given a whole series of questions to answer, giving him a better idea of what factors are important for good animal welfare.
However, the scan has not been a success among beef farmers. This is due to the fact that buyers do not yet attach much importance to it. But this may also mean that every livestock farmer with beef cattle understands the importance of taking good care of the animals as a basic requirement and that animal welfare is an important issue for every livestock farmer.
Further information:
https://www.dierenwelzijnscan.be/ ( there you can see a video of 4 minutes about the app for different types of animals)
https://www.boerenbond.be/dossiers