Schanz, L. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2021

Survey data on European organic multi-species livestock farms

While there is increasing evidence of the sustainability benefits of diversified systems in the organic cropping sector, this has been much less investigated with organic livestock farming. To fill this knowledge gap, we surveyed a sample of 128 European organic multi-species livestock farms located across seven countries - Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland - and covering a large range of livestock species combinations. We recorded 1574 variables as raw data out of which we calculated 107 indicators describing farm structure, management and several sustainability dimensions: resource use efficiency and conservation, animal, land and work productivities, animal and human welfare. After technical validation of the data, we withdrew 26 farms and the database covers 102 farms. This database is well suited to unveil relationships between various dimensions of organic multi-species livestock farm sustainability and their structure and management. It can help reveal sustainable strategies for organic multi-species livestock farming systems and understand levers or barriers to their development.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Sex and age don’t matter but breed type does - Factors influencing eye wrinkle expression in horses

Identifying valid indicators to assess animals emotional states is a critical objective of animal welfare science. In horses, eye wrinkles caused by the contraction of the inner eyebrow raiser have been shown to be affected by pain and other emotional states. Whether individual characteristics of a horse systematically affect eye wrinkle expression has not yet been studied. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess how age, sex, breed type, body condition and coat colour affect the expression and/or the assessment of eye wrinkles in horses. To this end, we adapted the eye wrinkle assessment scale from Hintze et al. (2016) and assessed eye wrinkle expression on pictures taken from the left and the right eye of 181 horses in a presumably neutral situation, using five outcome measures: a qualitative first impression reflecting how worried the horse looks, the extent to which the eyebrow is raised, the number of wrinkles, their markedness and the angle between a line through the eyeball and the topmost wrinkle. All measures could be assessed highly reliable with respect to intra- and inter-observer agreement. Breed type affected the width of the angle (F2, 114 = 8.20, p < 0.001), with thoroughbreds having the narrowest angle (M = 23.80, SD = 1.60), followed by warmbloods (M = 28.00, SD = 0.60), and coldbloods (M = 31.00, SD = 0.90). None of the other factors affected any of the outcome measures, and eye wrinkle expression did not differ between the left and the right eye area (all p-values > 0.05). Consequently, horses characteristics age, sex and coat colour did not systematically affect eye wrinkle expression, whereas breed type explained some variation in angle; how much eye wrinkle expression is affected by emotion or perhaps mood needs further investigation and validation.

animal behavior and cognition↗