Animal keepers who would like to assess animal welfare indicators themselves now have access to a customized online training course. In this online training, the animal welfare indicators of the three KTBL guides assigned to the topics of cattle, pigs and poultry (chicken/turkey) are explained and users learn which indicators are recommended for the survey within the scope of a farm self-monitoring and how you can apply them in practice. The training provides you with tips for checking the animal welfare situation on the farm and allows you to practice using the animal welfare indicators with the help of photos and videos. You can carry out the training independently in terms of time and organization.
Afterwards, you can test the acquired knowledge for the respective production direction on the basis of photos and videos in an online test and have a certificate issued if the result is good. You can receive a course-related certificate for successfully completing the entire training course including the test or only for passing the test.
For other interested parties, e.g. veterinarians or consulting firms, the training can also provide helpful knowledge for a safe animal assessment based on precisely described decision criteria.
The training course was jointly developed by three German research institutions, namely by the Thünen Institute for Organic Agriculture, Trenthorst, the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute, Institute for Animal Welfare and Husbandry, Celle, the University of Kassel, Department of Farm Animal Ethology and Husbandry, Witzenhausen, and the KTBL as part of the "EiKoTiGer" project.
There are courses on dairy cows and rearing calves, beef cattle, sows and suckling piglets,
rearing piglets and fattening pigs, laying hens, broilers and fattening turkeys. In the course for fattening cattle, the presented indicators are differentiated into those that are to be collected semi-annually (e.g. hoof condition, water supply, land supply) and those that are to be collected continuously (animal losses). For a first insight there is a demo version that can be used without registration. The free training course and further information on the project are available at www.ktbl.de - Themen - " Tierwohl bewerten " (unfortunately only in German for the moment). It is adapted to the 2nd edition of the guides published in 2020, which are available in the KTBL online store.
Direct link to the training:
https://tierschutzindikatoren-schulung.ktbl.de
Contact person at KTBL:
Rita Zapf
E-mail: r.zapf@ktbl.de