First consultation on work package 9: Welfare assessment of dairy cows in automatic milking systems

A joint work planning meeting with research groups from DIAS, Foulum (Dk) and SLU, Uppsala (S), involved in wp 9 was held at DIAS, Foulum, Denmark, March 12, 2001. It was concluded that the work package will gain by co-operation within and between the work package. In Wp 9 the welfare indicator protocol will be developed in Denmark during the first year (2001) and include reliability studies of indicators relating to grazing will be used and evaluated by the Dutch and the Swedish group. Animal related indicators (health and behaviour) will be included as far as possible. Physiological parameters developed by SLU may be useful to investigate the validity of some of the welfare indicators. This possibility will be investigated further in WP 9.

Message date: June 8, 2001