PhD in Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences

Contacts

Supervisor

Phd thesis

Title of the PhD project

Animal-based indicators for the welfare assessment of dairy goats under extensive farming systems

Supervisors

Supervisor: Prof. Luca Battaglini

First co-supervisor: Prof. Manuela Renna, Dept. Veterinary Sciences, UNITO

Second co-supervisor: Dr. Monica Battini, Dept. Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, UNIMI

Conference and poster presentations

Torsiello B., Battini M., Mattiello S., Renna M., Battaglini L. (2023). "Evaluation of dehydration indicators in dairy goats bred at pasture". Pastoralp-Global Challenges in the mountain agropastoral systems. (Poster presentation).

Torsiello B., Giammarino M., Battaglini L., Battini M., Mattiello S., Quatto P., Renna M. (2023). "Evaluation of inter-observer reliability of animal-based welfare indicators in the case of trichotomous variables with two oro more observers". Book of Abstracts of the 25th ASPA Congress, In: Italian Journal of Animal Science 22(1): 148-149. (Oral presentation). 

Torsiello B., Giammarino M., Battaglini L., Battini M., Mattiello S., Quatto P., Renna M. (2023). "Evaluation of inter-observer reliability of dichotomous and four-level animal-based indicators". Book of Abstracts of the 74th EAAP Congress, p. 889. (Oral presentation). 

Torsiello B., Mattiello S., Renna M., Battaglini L., Battini M. (2023). "Validation of the Familiar Human Approach Test to evaluate human-animal relationship in dairy goats at pasture". Book of Abstracts of the 5th EVCBMAW Congress, In Dog Behavior 9: 87. (Oral presentation). 

Published papers

Battini M., Renna M., Torsiello B., Battaglini L., Mattiello S. (2023). Is the Familiar Human Approach Test a valid method for evaluating the quality of human-goat relationship in pasture-based systems?. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 269: 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2023.106088.

Renna M., Torsiello B., Battaglini L., Mattiello S., Battini M. (2023). La valutazione del benessere nella capra da latte allevata al pascolo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8361074. https://www.unitogether.unito.it/it/content/articoli.

Research activities

Evaluation of animal-based welfare indicators in dairy goats bred under extensive farming systems. Riadaptation of the original AWIN (Animal Welfare Indicators) Protocol for the welfare assessment of dairy goats kept at pasture. Evaluation of the feasability and reliability of the main animal-based welfare indicators for the welfare assessment of dairy goats kept at pasture. Evaluation of inter-observer reliability (IOR) of dichotomous, trichotomous and four-level animal-based welfare indicators in the presence of two or more observers, implementing and comparing the performance of some statistical indexes proposed in the current literature, defined as agreement indexes. Validation of the Familiar-Human Approach Test for the evaluation of the human-animal relationship in dairy goats bred at pasture.