EURCAW Ruminants & Equines

EURCAW Ruminants & Equines provides scientific and technical knowledge to Competent Authorities of EU member states and their support bodies, for the official controls on ruminant and equine welfare requirements laid down in European Union animal welfare legislation.

EURCAW Ruminants & Equines is a consortium between the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU, Sweden), French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE, France), University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU,Austria), Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise “Giuseppe Caporale” (IZSAM, Italy), Hellenic Agricultural Organization-Dimitra, Veterinary Research Institute (ELGO-DIMITRA, Greece), University College Dublin (UCD, Ireland).

It has 5 main areas of activity:

1. Coordinated assistance
2. Animal welfare indicators, methods for assessment and improvement
3. Scientific and technical studies
4. Training courses
5. Disseminating research findings and innovations

For detailed understanding of ruminant & equine welfare issues on-farm, during transport and at slaughter:

• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines offers easy access to scientific knowledge for Competent Authorities and their support bodies via the Questions to EURCAW (Q2E) service.
• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines compiles dossiers on welfare topics containing review documents, thematic and indicator factsheets, which summarise the latest scientific and practical knowledge
• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines provides a knowledge base (library) with a search engine for finding scientific, legal and technical documents and other resources on ruminant and equine welfare issues

For verification of compliance with European Union animal welfare legislation:

• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines prepares factsheets on specified welfare topics, providing ruminant and equine welfare indicators, predominantly including animal-based indicators, but also management- and resource-based indicators
• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines identifies iceberg indicators that can be used by official inspectors to obtain a quick overview on possible welfare problems on farm, during transport, and at abattoirs

For further professional training and education:

• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines has created a Training Needs Analysis Platform (TraNAP) to identify knowledge and skills gaps to support the Competent Authorities, policy workers and their support bodies with the implementation of EU animal welfare legislation
• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines collates training activities and materials used in the Member States
• EURCAW Ruminants & Equines develops minimum (quality) standards for training activities on ruminant & equine welfare in husbandry, transport and slaughter