Dataset Information

Employee Management and Animal Care: A Comparative Ethnography of Two Large-Scale Dairy Farms in China.

ABSTRACT: Farm management can directly and indirectly affect animal care. We explored how farm management affected animal care on two large dairy farms in China (anonymized as Farm A and Farm B). We used a mini-ethnographic case study design whereby the first author lived for 38 days on Farm A and 23 days on Farm B. She conducted participant observation and ethnographic interviews with farm staff positions within five departments in Farm A and six departments in Farm B. In addition, she conducted 13 semi-structured interviews (seven on Farm A; six on Farm B). We used template analysis to generate key themes. On both farms, workers believed that animal care practices had improved over time, due to three key employee management factors: 1) organizational culture, 2) competency of worker and management, and 3) an effective incentive system. Our results suggest that animal care may be improved in this context by: 1) promoting a culture in which workers have 'grit' and are eager to learn, 2) ensuring basic worker wellbeing, and 3) using animal care outcomes as performance indicators linked to pay.

SUBMITTER: Chen M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8147064 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Employee Management and Animal Care: A Comparative Ethnography of Two Large-Scale Dairy Farms in China.

Chen Maria M von Keyserlingk Marina A G MAG Magliocco Sabina S Weary Daniel M DM

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI 20210427 5

Farm management can directly and indirectly affect animal care. We explored how farm management affected animal care on two large dairy farms in China (anonymized as Farm A and Farm B). We used a mini-ethnographic case study design whereby the first author lived for 38 days on Farm A and 23 days on Farm B. She conducted participant observation and ethnographic interviews with farm staff positions within five departments in Farm A and six departments in Farm B. In addition, she conducted 13 semi- ...[more]

PMID: 33925746

Similar Datasets

Project description:Welfare of dairy animals and consequently their health and productivity is influenced by numerous factors such as the quality and quantity of supplement, health care given to animals, and stockpeople Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) on animal welfare. A lot of studies have been conducted to evaluate the influence of most of the above factors on welfare of dairy animals, but very little studies focused on the influence of stockpeople KAPs of animal welfare. However, given the growing demand for milk and dairy products and the increasing global demand for animal products that are produced in an animal welfare friendly environment there is potential benefit of studying the KAPs of stockpeople towards the welfare of dairy animals. Herein, a cross sectional study involving 93 stockpeople from the 31 large-scale dairy farms in Midlands Province, Zimbabwe was conducted to determine their KAPs on animal welfare. Results of this study revealed that 67% of the stockpeople could not define animal welfare and this was significantly associated with the stockperson's level of education (χ2 = 12.54, df = 3, p = 0.006). Only 14% of the stockpeople interviewed always talked to dairy animals when handling them and this was correlated with gender (p < 0.001). About 20% of the stockpeople responded positively to touching the dairy animals when handling them and this was associated significantly with the stockperson's gender (p = 0.005). On a more positive note when stockpeople were asked to respond to whipping of animals when driving them, about 90% of the stockpeople said they never whip animals when handling or driving them. It is recommended that further studies be done to find out better and more effective ways of teaching animal welfare concepts and practices. These approaches of teaching animal welfare to stockpeople should take into account the stockpeople's cultural, religious and education backgrounds. Stockpeope due to their low renumeration may also prioritise animal welfare attributes that directly impact on production such as hunger and thirst as well freedom from diseases pain and injury.

Project description:In the European Union, there is an increasing need for farm animal nutrition products whose positive effects can replace antibiotics that have been heavily used for decades. Thus, the use of probiotics started to increase in the past few years. In this study, a survey on the practical use of probiotics in Hungarian dairy cattle farms and the related experience of farm nutrition experts was conducted. In addition, we surveyed the state of Hungary for probiotics production and distribution. After direct request via phone, nutrition experts responsible for farm feeding programs in 23 large commercial dairy cattle farms and eight managers in different feed distributor companies in Hungary filled out the relevant online questionnaires in 2018. The results show that 69.6% of the surveyed farms used probiotics, most often aiming at the optimization of rumen fermentation, protection against stressors, and supplementation of medical treatments. The most common expected beneficial effects of probiotics were more effective calf raising, larger milk yield, more stable rumen fermentation, and improved stress resistance. None of the respondents experienced any negative effects. In Hungary, five out of eight surveyed feed companies produced probiotic products for cattle, and one just distributed them. Company managers generally thought that farm nutrition experts did not have up-to-date knowledge on probiotics, which is why, these products are often not used in an effective way, and the experts' knowledge should be increased. The own experiments of the distributor companies showed that the probiotic products can improve feed digestibility, the efficacy of calf raising, and the reproductive performance of cows. According to the expectations of distributors, the next generation of probiotic products will be microencapsulated and will contain multiple strains and species of bacteria and prebiotics, too. The goal of the product development is to create probiotics with better effectiveness at a reasonable price, having a complex impact and easier application on the herd level. The study showed that probiotics are already frequently used to prevent diseases in Hungarian dairy herds. However, it can be concluded that there is room for improvement, especially concerning the knowledge transfer about the most effective use of probiotic products.

Dataset Information

Employee Management and Animal Care: A Comparative Ethnography of Two Large-Scale Dairy Farms in China.

Publications

Employee Management and Animal Care: A Comparative Ethnography of Two Large-Scale Dairy Farms in China.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets