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.