Happy Cow: teaching methodology for the develop of students competencies and skills to evaluate cattle welfare

Abstract

During the past years the consumer’s awareness about the importance of welfare of animals used for food production is increasing. In this way, studies and systems to evaluate and monitor the quality of the welfare, mainly in intensive systems productions, have been developed and guidelines and protocols with parameters to be determined have been published. However, they all have various problems and there is no universally accepted methodology. Therefore, based on criteria and parameters based on the animal and on facilities and handling recommended on the aforementioned project and other variables considered important for dairy cows health and welfare by professors from the Departments of Animal Production and Medicine, Surgery and Veterinary Anatomy, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of León, a free software program (Happy Cow) has developed by students of the School of Industrial Engineering and Computer ULE that achieves two objectives: to be used as a teaching tool to develop students competencies and skills necessary for the evaluation of animal welfare using parameters based both on animals and facilities, and to improve the welfare of farm animals, identifying critical points and weakest, providing information and recommendations that could be used by each producer from assessments made on his farm.

Keywords

• bienestar animal
• sofware
• vacuno lechero
• metodología docente
• competencias
• habilidades