The protocols of welfare quality® – improving measurements of animal welfare

Abstract

Animal protection and welfare of the animals became parts of our everyday life; no matter we’re keeping animals ourselves or are only speaking about it. There’re, of course, different levels of animal protection and welfare based on our interest, and the welfare of the animals can be proved and measured with various methods, in different depth on these levels.
Welfare can be assigned by studying the animals – measuring changes in behaviour, in physiological parameters and in production traits – or by listing the environmental conditions (both people and objects) provided for satisfying the needs of the animals. The laws about animal protection are based on the second; however, the European Union elaborated the Welfare Quality system based on animal measurements by 2009 (Végh, 2012).
„The Welfare Quality project supported by European funds in dealing with integrating welfare into the food quality chain. Defining the indicators of welfare, and building them into the supervising system, provides us tools to answer the customers’ demand for getting reliable and transparent information about the welfare regulations applied in the production chain. Its aim is to enhance the competitiveness of products fulfilling the welfare regulations.”