Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week 2024 / IX – Animal Welfare

Animal welfare is defined as the degree of adaptation of individuals to their environment. In practice, this adaptation means that the physiological stress response of the individual is successful when facing challenges such as those related to health. It is also well known that intense or chronic stress has adverse effects on the immune response of individuals to various pathogens. From this, it can be deduced that ensuring individuals are more resilient to stress or that their productive environment presents fewer stressful situations can be an effective strategy to improve their response to disease and, consequently, reduce the need for antimicrobial treatments.
Within the animal welfare program, different research lines are being developed to:
- reduce stress factors affecting animals during their productive stage, transportation, or pre-slaughter phase;
- enhance individual resilience to stress.
Examples of stress reduction include projects focused on improving farm or transport conditions to prevent thermal stress or using diets at weaning that improve gut health and prevent the development of diarrhea. To enhance resilience to stress, projects are carried out in collaboration with the genetics program to understand the role of gut microbiota in mental and physical health and promote strategies to maintain a balanced microbiota.
Anna Jofre