Valutazione del benessere della bufala a livello aziendale: ripetibilità di alcuni indicatori biologici

The aim of this study was to evaluate the repeatability of some animal related variables. Recordings were performed in 3 dairy buffalo farms. For each farm 30-40 animals were selected. Observations were conducted by a team of 8 trained assessors. Animals were observed in 3 occasions at 3 week intervals. Each animal was always assessed by the same observer. The variables collected were the 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) and a ratio between the variance of the animal and the sum of the latter with the error variance. These two methods yielded similar results which indicated that avoidance distance, stepping and kicking were repeatable.