Small ruminants' welfare assessment-Dairy goat as an example

- Society and consumers are increasingly demanding for farm animal welfare assessments.
- Welfare assessment protocols are useful for certification schemes but also for health and welfare monitoring.
- Assessment should use mainly animal based indicators. Welfare assessment protocols for small ruminants are now available in the internet.
- A two-step assessment has shown to be preferable due to feasibility reasons.

Welfare assessment has become one of the main targets of research in animal welfare science. To build a comprehensive and useful tool, welfare and health indicators should be valid and replicable and the protocol application should be feasible in field conditions. A good protocol is a powerful instrument for certification schemes but also for health monitoring, and should be used regularly by veterinarians and farmers. As an example we present in this paper the two-step AWIN welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats in intensive systems, that has been tested in over 60 farms in Portugal and Italy.