The ever-growing volume of data routinely collected and stored in everyday life presents researchers with a number of opportunities to gain insight and make predictions. This study aimed to demonstrate the usefulness in a specific clinical context of a simulation-based technique called probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) in interpreting the results of a discrete time survival model based o...

Lameness in pigs is a major welfare and economic issue for swine breeding herds. Claw lesions have been suggested to be significant cause lameness sows. Housing conditions nutrition management on the farm influence horn quality may associated with development of claw pigs. The current work examines structure as well hardness, fracture mechanical properties claws retrieved from housing For chara...

BACKGROUND Lameness is a common problem in modern swine husbandry. It causes welfare problems in affected pigs as well as financial problems for farmers. To minimize these negative consequences of lameness, new treatment and prevention strategies need to be developed and validated using objective and quantitative measurement techniques. An example of such a putative diagnostic tool is the use o...

REASON FOR PERFORMING STUDY There are no detailed studies describing a relationship between hindlimb lameness and altered motion of the back. OBJECTIVES To quantify the effect of induced subtle hindlimb lameness on thoracolumbar kinematics in the horse. METHODS Kinematics of 6 riding horses were measured during walk and trot on a treadmill before and during application of pressure on the so...

Recent studies have reported associations between lameness and body condition score (BCS) in dairy cattle, however the impact of change in the dynamics of BCS on both lameness occurrence and recovery is currently unknown. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the effect of change in BCS on the transitions from the non-lame to lame, and lame to non-lame states. A total of 731 cow...

Lameness is widely recognized as one of the most serious welfare and production concerns in the dairy industry. Our objectives were to evaluate the associations between lying behavior and lameness, and to determine whether lying behavior can be used as a diagnostic tool for lameness. Electronic data loggers recorded lying behavior of 1,319 cows from 28 farms at 1-min intervals for 5 d. These co...

BACKGROUND Organic pig production is expanding and amongst the objectives of organic farming are enhancing animal health and welfare. However, some studies have reported a higher prevalence of lameness and joint condemnation at slaughter in free-range/organic pigs than in conventionally raised pigs. Organic slaughter pigs have free-range housing in which indoor and outdoor access is compulsory,...

Lameness in dairy cows is an important welfare issue. As part of a welfare assessment, herd level lameness prevalence can be estimated from scoring a sample of animals, where higher levels of accuracy are associated with larger sample sizes. As the financial cost is related to the number of cows sampled, smaller samples are preferred. Sequential sampling schemes have been used for informing dec...

animal welfare considerations are becoming increasingly important for farming of animals, both in tunisia and internationally. practices which may have once been deemed acceptable are now being reassessed in the light of new knowledge and changing attitudes. and a clearly defined concept of welfare is needed for use in precise scientific measurements. if animal welfare is to be compared in diff...