News

Making handling of dairy cows safer

In her Master Thesis, Sofia Åström investigates the differences in behaviour when moving dairy cows to claw trimming compared to milking. The focus is on the behaviour of the cows and their interaction with the facilities. The goal is to provide ideas on how to improve the handling facilities to minimize the animals’ distraction and fear and thereby make the handling safer and more efficient.

Sofia Åström will defend her thisis 18^th January, 13:00 in Uppsala, HMH corridor (“Banana building”) with video link to Skara. Find the invitation here. Welcome!

Speaking of poultry

During the Nordic Poultry Conference (Nordiska fjäderfämötet) in Stockholm 5-7 December, PhD-student Anna Johansson from SLU talked about her work under the title The Welfare Quality® approach - ongoing research within poultry science. Her research is one of the projects financed by the Centre of Excellence in Animal Welfare Science.

Comparing certification schemes

Is there a way to find a balance between using resource-based measures, management-based measures and animal-based measures. If this is possible, which approach should be taken when designing a certification scheme?

Vet student Niclas Högberg  is currently working on his Master thesis: "A comparison of two certification schemes for dairy cow welfare in relation to resource-based, management-based and animal-based measures". The intention of this thesis is to make a comparison of two certification schemes for dairy cows, Svenskt Sigill and Freedom Food, in regards of the different types of measures that are proposed to be used.

Research recognised in media

Recently, a number of studies affiliated to the centre have been seen and heard about in media. One example is Lena Lidfors, SLU, study of the effect of play in pigs, which got attention in Swedish television SVT(external link).

The Swedish radio highlighted a study from Linköping University, where Dominic Wright was interviewed on their new findings regarding the comb size in poultry (external link).

The study of play behaviour in lambs by Claes Anderson, SLU, also got attention recently with an article in the magazine Djurskyddet (external link).

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Many participants from the Centre at the ISAE-conference in Vienna

The 46th Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology was held in Vienna, Austria July 31 - August 4. The Centre of Excellence in Animal Welfare Science was represented by a number of participants from both SLU and Linköping, who contributed with several oral presentations and posters. Invited as a plenary speaker was Per Jensen, who talked on the subject "Behaviour epigenetics - the connection between environment, stress and welfare".  

Find out more about our recent publications here.