Implementation of animal welfare, to improve the productive performance of Jersey and Holstein cows, in the municipality of Ilobasco, department of Cabañas, El Salvador

Abstract

This study was carried out at the Jovel Farm, in Ilo-basco, Cabañas, El Salvador. Its objective was to im-plement an Animal Welfare Guide, and to evaluate if this increased the milk production of eight selected Jersey and Holstein cows (4 of each breed). The expe-riment had three phases: the first, which was a pretest that measured weekly production and physical-che-mical evaluation of total solids, density, protein, fat, etc., along with a checklist that verified animal wel-fare indicators: housing, health status, behavior, etc. The second phase was the application of said guide, and the last phase, the compilation and comparison of results, through the post-test together with the checklist and a statistical analysis of Student’s t-test. For this, milk samples were taken for analysis. The results were: a 44 % increase in milk fat for the Jersey breed, and a significant improvement in the produc-tive performance of both breeds, after the application of the guide