The Connection between Welfare and the Quality of Animal Products
A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Product Quality and Safety".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 July 2023) | Viewed by 160
Special Issue Editors
Interests: meat quality; organic farming; animal welfare; animal farming
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: meat quality; rabbit farming; welfare
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The relationship between the welfare of farmed animals and their performance has been one of the top research fields of the last decade. The available literature points to a negative impact of decreased welfare on animal behavior and health but also clearly states that poor welfare simply affects the economy of animal production through lower milk yields, growth rates, or the number of laid eggs.
We also know that maintaining a high level of welfare from the birth to the slaughter of animals is not simple as it usually involves different animal units (farm, transportation truck, slaughterhouse), and even short-term pre-slaughter stress can negatively affect the meat quality of animals kept under very good housing environment whole their life. To conclude, the possibility of defining individual factors that are responsible for decreased quality of animal products is sometimes limited, though the more potential ‘welfare–product quality’ links we examine, the more we know.
The objective of this Special Issue is to highlight research findings that connect the welfare of farmed animals at different phases of the production chain (on the farm, at transportation, lairage, and slaughter) with the quality of animal products (meat, milk, eggs, wool), without focusing on the production performance only. The studies linking welfare to the quality of animal products allow us to improve the well-being of farmed animals and to prove that this relationship matters. The goal of animal production in the modern world should be, first and foremost, quality.
Dr. Agnieszka Ludwiczak
Dr. Joanna Składanowska-Baryza
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- animal husbandry
- enrichments
- pre-slaughter stress
- transportation
- meat quality
- milk quality
- egg production
