ITALY AND SWITZERLAND INVESTIGATE EMOTIONS IN GOATS

The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW), an English charity that works with the animal welfare science community worldwide to develop and promote improvements in the welfare of animals through scientific and educational activity, supports every year Small Project and Travel Awards. Last year, Prof. Mattiello (who is also the contact person of the UFAW University LINKs scheme for the University of Milan) and Dr Battini at DiSAA, and Mrs. Rosenberger at Agroscope (Swiss centre of excellence for agricultural research) received funds for the development of a project about the assessment of emotional states in goats. The project consists of a 2-day training for Swiss and Italian students in Milan (March 18th-19th) on the use of the Quality Behaviour Assessment method (QBA) and, as homework, students will apply QBA to score some videoclips recorded on goats during behavioural tests. The results of this research will add important and useful information on goats’ emotions, aiming to improve their welfare.

Contacts

Silvana Mattiello silvana.mattiello@unimi.it

Monica Battini monica.battini@unimi.it

Link to: Workshop on goat welfare assessment