The value society assigns to animal welfare in agricultural productions is increasing, resulting in ever-enhancing methods to assess the well-being of farm animals. The aim of this study was to review the scientific literature to obtain an overview of the current knowledge on welfare assessments for sheep and to extract animal-based welfare indicators as well as welfare protocols with animal-based indicators. By title and abstract screening, we identified five protocols and 53 potential indicators from 55 references. Three out of the five protocols include animal-based as well as resource-based indicators. All of them were assessed as being practicable on-farm but lacking reliability. Some of the single indicators are endorsed by the literature and widely used in the field like assessment of behaviour, lameness or body condition score. Others (e.g., Faffa Malan Chart FAMACHA©, dag score or pain assessment) are regularly mentioned in the literature, but their reliability and usefulness are still subject of discussion. Several indicators, such as pruritic behaviour, eye condition, lying time or tooth loss are relatively new in the literature and still lack evidence for their validity and usefulness. This literature review serves as a starting point for the development of valid and practicable welfare protocols for sheep.

This review describes the current state of knowledge relating to scientific literature on welfare indicators for goats. Our aim was to provide an overview of animal-based indicators for on-farm welfare assessments. We performed a literature search and extracted 96 relevant articles by title, abstract, and full-text screening. Out of these articles, similar indicators were aggregated to result in a total of 32 welfare indicators, some of which were covered in multiple articles, others in only a single one. We discuss a set of three established assessment protocols containing these indicators, as well as all individual indicators which were covered in more than one article. As single indicators, we identified lameness, body condition score (BCS), qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA), and human–animal relationship (HAR) tests with substantial evidence for sufficient validity to assess welfare in goats. A multitude of indicators (e.g., hair coat condition) was studied less intensively but was successfully used for welfare assessments. For some indicators (e.g., oblivion, lying behaviour), we highlight the need for future research to further validate them or to optimise their use in on-farm welfare assessments. Moreover, further investigations need to include kids, bucks, and meat and fibre goats, as well as extensively kept goats as the literature predominantly focuses on dairy goats in intensive production systems.

Farm animal health and welfare have been ongoing concerns for farmers, consumers, and society for a long time. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its relationship with antimicrobial use (AMU) have been identified as global public health challenges. A set of established health and welfare indicators (HWI) for dairy cows and the increasing availability of detailed farm-level AMU data enabled us to carry out this study with the objectives to (i) investigate the relationship between HWI and farm-level AMU, (ii) capture the current situation of AMR in dairy cows and calves on the study farms, and (iii) identify associations between AMR presence, AMU, and management practices in Swiss dairy farms. High AMU farms (n = 22) and low AMU farms (n = 28) were recruited based on prescription records in the national AMU database. Current farm AMU was assessed quantitatively using an animal treatment index (ATI) based on antimicrobial prescription data. A combination of animal-based and data-based health indicators were assessed on all study farms and used to form a total health and welfare score (HWS). Associations between lower ATI and good health and welfare were found for the total HWS (estimate: -0.144, p = 0.03) and the partial score for HWI related to health (-0.111, p = 0.01). Several individual HWI (e.g. productive lifespan of cows, participation in animal welfare programs) were found to be significantly associated with either AMU group (high vs. low), ATI, or both. Pooled fecal samples were used to assess the presence of AMR in the study farms. Commensal Escherichia coli isolates from calves and cows were most commonly resistant to tetracyclines (36 % and 3 %, respectively), followed by penicillins (34 % and 1 %) and sulfonamides (32 % and 1 %). No significant associations were observed between AMU and the presence of AMR (overall and for specific antimicrobial classes) on the study farms. Several management practices reported by farm managers during interviews (e.g. feeding of waste milk with antimicrobial residues to calves) were significantly associated with AMU group and ATI, but none were associated with the presence of AMR. The results of this study may help to understand how AMU is related to HWI in dairy cows and support monitoring and benchmarking efforts to reduce AMU while maintaining high levels of cow health and welfare. Further research on a larger scale is needed to obtain more generalizable results and to further investigate the complex and multifactorial relationship between AMU and AMR.