Assessing Extensive Cow-Calf Welfare in Namibia: Feasibility of Adapting a New Zealand Beef Cow Welfare Assessment Protocol

ABSTRACT

Namibia needs a robust welfare assessment protocol for beef cattle for benchmarking and trade. As there is presently no such protocol, one was developed for Namibian conditions based on one designed for extensive beef cattle in New Zealand which had been derived from the Welfare Quality and UC Davis Cow-Calf protocols, the modified protocol was evaluated in a semi-commercial farming village during the pregnancy testing of 141 cows from 5 herds of different households. Animal- and stockperson-based measures were assessed directly, cows were observed at grazing, and a questionnaire-guided interview was conducted. The protocol provided a good basis for welfare assessment, but additional measures and modifications were needed for the Namibian system. These were the effects of recurrent drought, predation, plant poisoning, external parasites, walking long distances to water and grazing, compulsory hot-iron branding, extraneous cattle marking, and variable standards of handling facilities. The protocol was modified to incorporate these changes, resulting in a total of 40 measures. It now needs full validation through widespread testing across the range of beef production systems used in Namibia.

KEYWORDS:

• Welfare assessment
• extensive beef cows
• Namibia
• New Zealand

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge farmers for participating in this study and The University of Namibia, especially the Multi-Disciplinary Research Center for vehicle provision. Baby acknowledges with sincere gratitude her husband Asser Katunahange, brothers Naongo Tjitemisa and Vitjiukua Tjitemisa, and son Muza Katunahange for the technical support and driving long distances to the village.

Authors contributions

Y.B.K.—main researcher who did the project proposal and data collection, analysis and main write up. R.L.—main supervisor who did conceptualisation, methodology, funding acquisition, review and editing. R.H.— editing and validation. K.S.—conceptualization, methodology and editing. T.P.—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding but funded from Massey University IVABS.