Research Project

>>Welfare Quality® Website

For intensive beef fattening, numerous welfare concerns based on current practices regarding housing, feeding and management have been described. It is the aim of this project to assess the suitability and efficacy of a welfare assessment system that may provide easily understandable product information as well as help for the farmers to improve the welfare status on their beef farms. For this purpose, perceptions and attitudes towards the Welfare Quality® assessment system of in total 90 beef farmers in Italy, Austria and Germany were studied using interviews. 63 out of these farms were subjected to a pre-, interim- and post- Welfare Quality® assessment. The contribution of the system to welfare improvement was investigated using different levels of feedback of information (i.e. control, written report of the results of the first assessment, results and additional advice). The feasibility of the tool and consistency of assessments over time was also evaluated.

• Heike Schulze Westerath
• Ute Knierim

• Schulze Westerath, H., Kirchner, M., Tessitore, E., Cozzi, G., Winckler, C., Knierim, U. (2009): Is agonistic behaviour in beef bulls affected by housing conditions? In: Abstracts of the Joint East Central and West Central Europe ISAE regional meeting. 25.-26.09., Vienna, Austria, p. 15
• Kirchner, M., Schulze Westerath, H., Tessitore, E., Cozzi, G., Knierim, U., Winckler, C. (2008): Perception and attitudes of beef farmers towards the Welfare Quality® assessment system. In: Proc. 4th Int. Workshop of the Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group Level (WAFL). 10.–13.09., Ghent, Belgium, p. 159

• Marlene Kirchner, Christoph Winckler (Division of Livestock Sciences, Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna)
• Elena Tessitore and Giulio Cozzi (Department of Animal Science, University of Padua, Legnaro)

European Commision, 6th Framework Programme

2007-2009