Ep31 Monica Battini on assessing positive welfare in ruminants and promising indicators in the Five Domains

Dr. Monica Battini is a Research Fellow at the Department of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences in Milan, Italy, where she also received her PhD in animal welfare.

Monica shares experiences about her previous work researching welfare quality and welfare assessment protocols for different farming species, animal emotions, and communication among others. She dives into two European projects: Welfare Quality® (WQ) and Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN).

In WQ, protocols for cattle, pigs and poultry (broiler and hens) were developed and I collected data for the development of the protocol for dairy cows.  In AWIN, protocols were developed for small ruminants, equids and turkeys and she co-authored the protocol for goats.

Her advice to become an animal welfare scientist is to be curious, strong, and keep to achieving goals during the journey.

Monica talks about the importance of considering good welfare for farm animals, looking at positive indicators and the Five Domains model. She highlights the moral duty we have as humans to raise animals in a good way. Monica explains in depth what animal welfare indicators are, how to classify them, and how to use them for assessment with farm animals.

Sabrina and Monica discuss how the lack of negative welfare conditions does not necessarily mean that animals are in good welfare and have a good quality of life. She talks about a life worth living for animals, the challenges involved, choice and control, and possibilities of mitigating negative effects with positive opportunities.

Monica shares how the research team used the Five Domains model in their research with different species and explains many examples of promising indicators, including how to identify them for positive welfare states. Monica gives some examples of adult and juvenile goats and different indicators.

To conclude, she remarks on the importance of creating a good relationship with the farmers, to collaborate, to learn from their knowledge, work on improvements, and building bridging science into practice.

Find more about Monica HERE

Learn more about the European AWIN project HERE

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