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EURCAW Aqua website now available
EURCAW Aquatic Animals has their website up and running.
Like the other EURCAWs, Aqua will be posting all of their publications, news and training on their website.
To access the website, visit https://www.eurcaw-aqua.eu/
NordCAW Conference 2024 on Poultry Welfare
November,13th 2024, Uppsala, Sweden
On November,13th 2024, Anja B. Riber participated in the NordCAW Poultry Welfare Conference 2024, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala, Sweden.
Her oral communication was entitled "What’s on the European poultry welfare agenda". The talk addressed specific poultry welfare topics that are currently of interest to many EU stakeholders, including growth rate of broilers, on-farm hatching; male layer chicks, keel bone fracture, end-of-cage age, mutilation, enrichment and assessment of positive welfare.
The conclusions were that:
1) topics important to the welfare of poultry in the EU are discussed,
2) there are, not surprisingly, some gaps of knowledge,
3) solutions for improving poultry welfare often exist, but progress still seems slow likely because of the clash with other interests, such as economy and the climate change agenda.
The presentation was part of the subactivity 1.1 Network building.
Fourth Reflection Board meeting
Tuesday 22 October 2024
The fourth Reflection Board meeting between representatives of RB organisations (from the EU Platform on Animal Welfare) and the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA was held remotely via Teams on October, 22th 2024 afternoon.
In total 10 participants, five of them from the seven EU platform entities forming the RB (one participant represented two entities), two from DG SANTE (as observers), and three from EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, were connected.
This meeting was the occasion to present the work achieved by the Centre since the last meeting, the new Work Programme proposal of the Centre, and to exchange, discuss and identify possible future collaborations and interests.
The presentations is available here.
The topics discussed can be found in the meeting report here.
Webinar_Welfare assessment during electrical stunning in rabbits
Tuesday 12 November 2024, from 10.00h to 12.00h (UTC +2, CEST)
Organized by EURCAW-Poultry-SFA.
The webinar was held via Teams.
Target audience: Official inspectors from the Competent Authorities of the EU MSs.
Attendance through invitation only.
The PDF of the presentation is available here.
The webinar recording will be available here.
Description:
Current European Union legislation on welfare of animals at the time of killing requires stunning before slaughter to render the animals unconscious, and thus insensible to pain, until death occurs. One of the main challenges in monitoring the state of consciousness is selecting the animal-based indicators that ensure consistent assessments.
This webinar aims to pinpoint the most relevant indicators, method and recommendations to assess the state of consciousness after electrical stunning of rabbits. It draws on findings from a comprehensive scientific study conducted at 16 commercial slaughterhouses across the European Union. The session will also cover the effectiveness of stunning, highlighting the primary factors that contribute to its success. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in discussions and address any questions or concerns.
Schedule:
10:00: General presentation of the EURCAW-Poultry SFA - Virginie Michel
10:15: Introduction to electrical stunning in rabbits and indicators – Antonio Velarde
10:20: Scientific study: refinement of indicators and efficiency of stunning - Alexandra Contreras-Jodar
10:30: Methods and recommendations - Alexandra Contreras-Jodar and Virginie Michel
The webinar was attended by 118 people (164 registered), from 14 EU Member States and 2 EFTA countries:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden
This webinar has been organized within the sub-activity 4.2: Development of course material for specific topics, of the working program 2023-2024.
EURCAW-POULTRY-SFA'S SEVENTH SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
The Centre is celebrating the publication of its seventh scientific article as a result of the work carried out in Activity 3 in 2023-2024.
This study evaluated the validity, inter-assessor reliability and intra-assessor repeatability of three visual scoring systems for litter quality, one known as the Welfare Quality Assessment Protocol© and two complementary systems for friability and humidity developed by the ClassyFarm initiative.
This article named "The assessment of litter quality in broiler chickens: validity, inter-assessor reliability, and intra-assessor repeatability of three visual scoring systems" has been published in British Poultry Science and is available here.