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Minutes EURCAW-Pigs Training workshop October 30th 2023, web-based.

The EU Reference Centre of Animal Welfare (EURCAW) was established in 2018 by DG SANTE to support EU Member States on issues related to the pig welfare legislation. As part of its activities, EURCAW-Pigs organises annual meetings with a Reflection Board, including representatives of the pig supply chain, related professional organisations and civil society organisations. The Reflection Board is informed about the activities of EURCAW-Pigs and is asked to reflect on them and to support the Centre with technical information. This third Reflection Board meeting was organized online (MS Teams) on 12th of June 2023, and the Board was represented by 8 delegates. The meeting was opened at 13:00h and closed at 15:30h.

EURCAW-Pigs received the following question from a welfare policy worker in one of the Member States: “Is there any evidence in scientific literature that there is a link between pleuritis (found during PM examination) and a bad climate and thus a reduced welfare of pigs in farms?“ Several EURCAW experts contributed to the response in this document.

Roadshows EURCAW-Pigs 2023.

EURCAW-Pigs received the following question from a veterinary inspector in one of the Member States: “How does the interval of birth monitoring affect the survival rate of piglets. In this example, the questionable interval is every 2 hours between 5am and 3pm and no birth monitoring after 3pm at all. The farmer claims, that it makes no difference in the survival rate if there is a night shift or not.” Several EURCAW-Pigs experts contributed to the response in this document.

The EU Reference Centre of Animal Welfare (EURCAW) was established in 2018 by DG SANTE to support EU Member States on issues related to pig welfare legislation. As part of its activities, EURCAW-Pigs organizes meetings with competent authorities (CA’s) and policy workers from EU Member States (MS). The meetings are an opportunity for MS officials to ask technical questions related to e.g. Directives 98/58/EC and 2008/120/EC (on farm), Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 (transport), and Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 (slaughter). The Competent Authorities meeting took place on the 20th-21st of September online via Teams. On both days, 41 officials from EU Member States were present, representing 20 MS in total. In addition, two delegates from DG SANTE and 13 EURCAW-Pigs experts attended the meeting.

It may be helpful for Competent Authorities (CAs) and inspectors to get an impression of the possibilities to monitor animal-related measures in slaughterhouses through the application of sensor technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Sensor technology cannot yet replace a human during the meat inspection, but it has potential to play an important role in the future. Currently it can already add value to the inspections and provide better insight into animal welfare issues than by human inspections alone (Voogt et al., 2023). This document provides several examples of digital technology systems to improve animal welfare.

Training guide: Heat stress in pigs on farm.

This training program will focus on alternative group housing and management strategies. The program can be regarded as an ‘add-on’ to the existing training program “Group housing and mixing of sows” as most of that programs’ points are just as relevant for the service period.

This training program will focus on introducing participants to what stereotypes are, why they are developed and how they can act as indicators of impaired animal welfare - and partly on housing and management solutions to prevent and to mitigate stereotypies.

gs: EURCAWP, pigs, animal welfare, EURCAWPC, transport of animals, climate, space, sows, EURCAWPI, fitness, handling

The activities of the first EU Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (EURCAW) focus on the welfare of pigs, hence: EURCAW-Pigs. They cover the entire life cycle from birth to the end of life, and include pig husbandry, transport and slaughter or killing (for other purposes than human consumption). EURCAW-Pigs’ main objective is a harmonised compliance with EU welfare legislation regarding pigs. The Centre started its activities in October 2018, and built a solid and structured foundation for knowledge dissemination to the two main target groups: the Competent Authorities and animal welfare policy workers in the Member States.

EURCAW-Pigs provides a training course example as a sort of standard for each of the welfare focus topics in our Work Programme. The diversity of the different EU Member states (MS) on how training is organized in general has to be taken into account: Hence, ‘standards’ for training will not fit all national needs, but need to be adjusted to the different contexts in the MS.

This document contains the programme and suggested training material for the training course about Euthanasia of suckling piglets on farm.

Minutes of the EURCAW-Pigs Reflection Board meeting on 24th November 2022.

Online Survey after the NRCs & SBs meeting in 2021. The aim of the survey was to better understand the EU MSs CAs needs and how we as the EURCAWs can structure a European Animal Welfare network, to improve the meeting for future events and to ask all participant about suitable iceberg indicators, they would suggest regarding the husbandry, transport and slaughtering of pigs in the EU.