On-farm welfare assessment in dairy cattle and buffaloes: evaluation of some animal-based parameters.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the repeatability of some animal related variables, which could be used in protocols developed for assessing animal welfare at farm level. Recordings were performed in seven dairy farms (four for cattle and three for buffaloes). The animals were observed in three occasions at three-week intervals. Each farm was always assessed by the same pair of observers. The variables collected for each animal were the following: behaviour during milking (stepping and kicking), avoidance distance, lameness and cleanliness. For each farm and each variable repeatability was computed using the Kendall coefficient of concordance (W). In buffalo farms avoidance distance may be considered highly reliable (W > 0.64), whereas in dairy cattle its reliability ranged from medium (W = 0.43 to 0.59) to high (W = 0.64). Behavioural recordings at milking showed that the reliability of stepping was either medium or high for both buffaloes and cattle (W = 0.51 to 0.66 and W = 0.52 to 0.76 for buffaloes and cattle, respectively). Conversely, kicking was less reliable. In cattle farms the reliability for cleanliness ranged from medium (W = 0.51) to high (W = 0.62 to 0.71), conversely, it was not reliable in the sole buffalo farm where this variable was monitored. In cattle farms, the concordance for lameness score was high in two farms (W = 0.62 and 0.66) and moderate in one farm (W = 0.43), whereas no animals displayed lameness in the fourth farm. In all buffalo farms no animals showed lameness. For each species, the Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance with one factor (farm) was performed to evaluate the effect of farm on recorded variables. For cattle, avoidance distance (P<0.001), stepping (P<0.001), cleanliness (P<0.001) and lameness (P<0.01) were affected by farm, whereas kicking was not significantly different between farms. In buffaloes a significant effect of farm was observed only for avoidance distance (P<0.01). The Mann-Whitney U test performed on data obtained from the farm where both species were present showed that avoidance distance was lower in buffaloes than cattle (P<0.001). This variable is reliable, feasible and able to discriminate among farms. Lameness and cleanliness scores were able to discriminate only cattle farms, whereas these two parameters, albeit feasible, seem to have low significance for buffaloes. Although stepping during milking was reliable and different among cattle farm, its use in on-farm assessment may be difficult because it is more time consuming, thus less feasible.