Journal Title
Title of Journal: Vet Res Commun
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Abbravation: Veterinary Research Communications
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Publisher
Springer Netherlands
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Authors: F Petazzi G Rubino I Alloggio A Caroli E Pieragostini
Publish Date: 2009/06/20
Volume: 33, Issue: 8, Pages: 865-
Abstract
Most sheep farmers are aware of the importance of monitoring animal health and wellbeing for profitable sheep production Unfortunately there are only a few benchmarked functional measures of sheep wellbeing but much can be gained from our understanding of other species Moreover comprehensive monitoring programs may be complex and relatively expensive to implement Hence this work reports the results of a research study on the usefulness of functional markers in measuring dairy sheep wellbeing taking into account farm management and environmental conditions The study was conducted on 11 farms breeding Italian islander sheep breeds The husbandry and management parameters of each farm were assessed and based on the findings the farms were scored in ascending quality order Flock information concerned housing milking system pen size grazing hours health management and stockmanship Medical history clinical data the most relevant haematological chemical and biochemical parameters as well as the haemoglobin genotype were recorded for 415 individuals The whole dataset was analyzed by Spearman correlation and multivariate statistical procedures showing that albumin serum alkaline phosphatase haematocrit and haemoglobin were the most significant functional markers of a flock’s general conditions Haematocrit and haemoglobin reflect animal health status while albumin and serum alkaline phosphatase are a measure of nutritional status and physical activity respectively These are objective parameters which can be easily measured from blood samples and have proved to be effective for grouping to interpret animal wellbeing
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