Recommendations from vets and producers receive approval

Changes to the Real Welfare Protocol carried out by vets during farm inspections have been approved, following recommendations by vets and producers.

After a six-month pilot of the new Real Welfare Assessments, which were introduced to the Red Tractor Pigs Scheme in April 2013, a review group was set up to share their experiences and assess the protocols.

The group made a set of recommendations to make the process more practical, all of which have been unanimously agreed by the Red Tractor Technical Advisory Committee.

As a result of these recommendations, the environmental enrichment portion of the protocol has been suspended until the end of February 2014, while a redesign is carried out.

Vets will no longer need to complete this part of the assessment during their quarterly visits to the farm, unless they wish to continue doing so.

Members of the review group also discussed the assessment of body lesions and tail marks. Whilst it was agreed that measuring severe cases was practical and useful, measuring minor marks is proving time consuming and troublesome.

The group will therefore examine whether or not the value of the extra information outweighs the cost of this assessment. In the meantime, vets are still required to record this information.

Measures for lameness and hospital pigs are to remain the same at the recommendation of the group, while the sampling procedure for Real Welfare Assessments is to be reviewed by the end of February 2014 to ensure that it is practical.

As of June 30, 2013, it became a requirement for vets to carry out Real Welfare assessments and submit the data to a central database, as part of their quarterly visits to Red Tractor assured farms.

The assurance schemes centre on providing consumer confidence in product quality, food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection. They have more than 60,000 members across the pig, dairy, poultry, beef, lamb, crop and fresh produce industries.

The Real Welfare Steering Group, who worked on implementing the assessments into the Red Tractor scheme, will meet with the review group in October to continue this examination of the protocols.