On-farm welfare monitoring of small ruminants

The paper discusses assessment of animal welfare in small ruminant production systems and reports on developments regarding various monitoring schemes, which are used to assess small ruminant welfare at farm level. Further, welfare assessment protocols are presented; these have been derived as results in the Animal Welfare Indicators (‘AWIN’) project, which had been funded within the European Commission’s 7th Framework Program. The role of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in providing a scientific basis for future legislation on animal welfare is described. Finally, emergency medicine to reduce small ruminant suffering and support appropriate decisions to promote welfare of individual animals or populations of animals is also discussed.