Abstract
Livestock animals are of high importance in biomedical or in agricultural and veterinary research. In contrast to small laboratory animals, they are usually obtained directly from farm production, resulting in lower homogeneity and variation in animal health status. Further challenges are the generally high requirement of personnel expertise, the refinements of housing conditions and biosecurity risk, including zoonotic risk.
The FELASA Working Group on Farm Animals – Health and Welfare of Ruminants and Pigs concluded their good work with the publications of their recommendations for animal health and hygienic control with ruminants and pigs, focusing on relevant pathogens when importing and/or using livestock experimental animals.
The paper is published in Laboratory Animals and is available electronically, ahead of print, as Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0). This allows anyone to read, share and reuse the FELASA recommendations at no cost and without permission as long as the publication is properly referenced. Just follow the DOI link below to access the document.
‘Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations recommendations of best practices for the health management of ruminants and pigs used for scientific and educational purposes’. By the FELASA Working Group on Farm Animals: Corina Mihaela Berset (Convenor), Maria Emiliana Caristo, Fabienne Ferrara, Patrick Hardy, Marianne Oropeza-Moe and Ryan Waters. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023677220944461
Have a good read!