Similarities and Differences of Animal Welfare Perceptions between U.S. Cow-Calf Producers and the Public

Melissa G.S. McKendree, Glynn Tonsor and Christopher Wolf ()

No 205433, 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: The U.S. livestock industry is increasingly faced with pressure to adjust practices in response to societal concerns. A specific area of growing concern surrounds how production practices impact the welfare of farm animals. The objective of this analysis is to use best-worst scaling to determine which practices the U.S. public and cow-calf producers view as the most effective and most practical practices to improve the welfare of beef cattle in the U.S., and to determine similarities and differences in the public and producer views. Results indicate that both the U.S. public and cow-calf producers view provide access to fresh, clean feed and water appropriate for the animal’s physiological state, and provide adequate comfort through the use of shade, windbreaks, and ventilation assuring clean, dry, sanitary environmental conditions for cattle as the most effective and most practical practices to improve the welfare of beef cattle in the U.S. The practices which were viewed as the least effective and least practical were castrate male calves either within the first three months of age or with pain control, and dehorn/disbud calves either before horn tissue adheres to the skull or with pain control.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Livestock Production/Industries; Marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2015
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https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/205433/files/M ... %20_5%2026%2015_.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Similarities and Differences of Animal Welfare Perceptions between U.S. Cow-Calf Producers and the Public (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea15:205433

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.205433

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