Abstract
European Fur Breeders’ Association initiated the ‘WelFur project’ in 2009 which is aiming at developing an applicable on farm welfare assessment protocol for mink based on the Welfare Quality® principles. Such a welfare assessment system should possess the following qualities: It should be ‘high’ in validity, reliability as well as feasibility – the latter both as regards time and economy costs. This paper based on empiric data addressed the questions on needed sample size for a robust herd assessment of animal based measures. The animal based part of the full WelFur protocol including 9 animal based measures such as ‘stereotypy’, ‘temperament’ and ‘body condition’. These measures were in each of 9 Danish mink farms on approximately 250 adult mink on each farm collected during the nursing season 2011 by a total of 8 observers working in pairs. Descriptive result showed a large between herd variations in herd prevalence of the mentioned parameters. Statistical analyses showed that a sample size of 125 adult mink was a robust estimate of the herd level of animal based measures.
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© 2012 Wageningen Academic Publishers The Netherlands
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Rousing, T., Møller, S.H., Hansen, S.W. (2012). WelFur-mink: on-farm welfare assessment of mink (Neovision vision) - effect of sample size on animal based measures. In: Larsen, P.F., et al. Proceedings of the Xth International Scientific Congress in fur animal production. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen. https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-760-8_61
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-760-8_61
Publisher Name: Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen
Online ISBN: 978-90-8686-760-8
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