Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research Group

Episode 5: Dr. Lindsey Matthews

Roger: Joining me now is science leader of the Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research at AgResearch, Dr. Lindsey Matthews. Weve seen some cases recently in the media involving animal welfare. These are extreme cases though. What motivates your research?

Lindsey: NZ livestock farming is viewed very positively both within NZ and internationally, the standards of welfare. But increasingly we are being asked to demonstrate that. There are governmental regulations, there are retailer processing-type schemes. They want to assure their customers that the standards of welfare in NZ are high.

Roger: Is this just paper work or are we talking about changes on farm?

Lindsey: What we need to do first of all is to look at some of the practices, particularly those that, say, customers or consumers elsewhere are concerned about. Livestock transport or provision of shade and shelter for animals outdoors, which is obviously the norm in NZ but its not the norm in the countries we sell a lot of our products to. So theyre wanting to be assured that the animals are well cared for. So we need to demonstrate with science, that is the case and if we do need to tweak things a bit we will find cost effective ways of doing that.

Roger: Lets talk about stock transport because youve been doing a lot of that, I know. What have you managed to find out?

Lindsey: One of the issues is whether the animals overheat or not during the journeys while theyre on transporters. And weve been looking at the environment within the transporters, particularly sheep transport. We have been identifying the climatic conditions, if you like, within the transporters and relating these to the conditions outside the transporters. So weve been trying to predict when the conditions in the transporters might become too uncomfortable for the animals. Now, what we found is that so long, as long as the transporters are moving, even though theres not necessarily a lot of ventilation area on the truck, so long as the transporters moving the environment inside is acceptable. If the truck stops and it stops where there isnt much ventilation than the temperature humidity can rise quite quickly. We do know that on hot days you shouldnt have your truck stop for too long and if the animals are showing signs of heat stress, panting and so oh, then you need to get the truck moving again.

Roger: Its not just transport though is it, because we have to take care of animals on farm as well.

Lindsey: What we have demonstrated is that once their temperature gets above 25 degrees then cows will go to the shade and it does drop their body temperature a little bit and it does increase their milk production a little bit. And the time spent in the shade, not grazing during the day, they graze longer at night in the cooler part of the day to make up for that. So they end up producing slightly more. Now obviously providing shade is not that easy on farms. Particularly if you dont have trees already there. So were turning our attention to some other perhaps more practical ways to alleviate any undue heat that the animals may be having. And an obvious one is to sprinkle them with water while theyre waiting to be milked. Or to provide shade over the holding yards.

Roger: Where does the idea that farmers need to take better care of their stock come from? Is it Europe?

Lindsey: Were selling a lot of our products into what we call welfare sensitive markets, Europe is one of those. It does take a lot of our products so we need to be cognisant of what the consumers want and what the retailers in those markets want.