Evaluación del bienestar animal por medio del protocolo Awin®(Indicadores de bienestar animal) en la especie Ovina.

Abstract

The objective of this research was to evaluate the Animal Welfare (BA) of the ovine species based on the AWIN® protocol (Animal Welfare Indicators), which is a tool that evaluates and controls the quality of BA in farms, recreation spaces and slaughterhouses), in order to evaluate the principles (food, facilities, health and behavior). In the present study, a total of 148 sheep were used as a population sample divided into: 70 breeders, 20 lambs, 2 breeders and 56 offspring, of the Katahdin, Dorper, Creole hair sheep (OPC) breeds, reared under a semiintensive system in La Chamba farm located in the Miracielo village of the Santo Domingo de Silos municipality at 2,409 meters above sea level, with an average temperature of 15 ° C, it has 19.6 hectares of land, where there are other types of farm animals and different crops. This work, therefore, was based on the AWIN® protocol, which basically consists of giving visual feedback on the state of welfare of farm animals, highlighting the positive conditions, collecting, adding and analyzing data. In this way, the evaluation of the Animal Welfare of the sheep of Hacienda La Chamba was carried out objectively, the results were averaged to quantify the qualification of each principle. The analysis of results showed that the production system obtained an optimum rating on the AWIN® protocol evaluation scale with 91,75%. Presenting a general compliance percentage of 80% in Good Nutrition, 92% in Good Accommodation, 99% in Good Health and 96% in Good Behavior (social behaviors and good man-animal relationship).