{"title":"Feasibility and acceptance of ready-made standard operating procedures in calf care on German dairy farms.","authors":"S Neukirchnera, K C Jensenb, W Heuwiesera","doi":"10.3168/jds.2023-24597","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Calf loss continues to be a considerable problem on German dairy farms. Untrained personnel or the lack of best practice routines are potential reasons. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) may increase process consistency and can improve animal health and animal welfare. We developed SOPs for 8 important tasks in calf care and provided them online to interested dairy farmers and their employees. Five questionnaires were embedded to collect data on demographics, use, perception, and feasibility of SOPs. Main objectives of the study were to investigate 1) if there is a gap between the existence of SOPs and the wish for SOPs, 2) if participants (n = 301) consider ready-made SOPs as feasible for their farm and 3) suitable to train new personnel, and 4) if they state their confidence in task execution higher after the courses. We experienced a strong discrepancy between the existence (13.1%) and the wish for SOPs (69.4%). Most the participants rated ready-made SOPs as feasible for their farm (66.5%). Eighty-five percent fully agreed or agreed to the statement that SOPs are a suitable tool for training new employees. Interestingly, 64.2% of employees mentioned, that they wanted to be involved in the creation of SOPs specific to their farm. The SOP based e-learning courses increased the confidence in performing tasks in calf care, especially concerning the tasks which were less often performed tasks such as tube feeding, emergency care and testing of colostrum quality.</p>","PeriodicalId":354,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Dairy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Dairy Science","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2023-24597","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AGRICULTURE, DAIRY & ANIMAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Calf loss continues to be a considerable problem on German dairy farms. Untrained personnel or the lack of best practice routines are potential reasons. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) may increase process consistency and can improve animal health and animal welfare. We developed SOPs for 8 important tasks in calf care and provided them online to interested dairy farmers and their employees. Five questionnaires were embedded to collect data on demographics, use, perception, and feasibility of SOPs. Main objectives of the study were to investigate 1) if there is a gap between the existence of SOPs and the wish for SOPs, 2) if participants (n = 301) consider ready-made SOPs as feasible for their farm and 3) suitable to train new personnel, and 4) if they state their confidence in task execution higher after the courses. We experienced a strong discrepancy between the existence (13.1%) and the wish for SOPs (69.4%). Most the participants rated ready-made SOPs as feasible for their farm (66.5%). Eighty-five percent fully agreed or agreed to the statement that SOPs are a suitable tool for training new employees. Interestingly, 64.2% of employees mentioned, that they wanted to be involved in the creation of SOPs specific to their farm. The SOP based e-learning courses increased the confidence in performing tasks in calf care, especially concerning the tasks which were less often performed tasks such as tube feeding, emergency care and testing of colostrum quality.
期刊介绍:
The official journal of the American Dairy Science Association®, Journal of Dairy Science® (JDS) is the leading peer-reviewed general dairy research journal in the world. JDS readers represent education, industry, and government agencies in more than 70 countries with interests in biochemistry, breeding, economics, engineering, environment, food science, genetics, microbiology, nutrition, pathology, physiology, processing, public health, quality assurance, and sanitation.