How genetics affect farm animal welfare???

a. Genetics affect an animal’s ability to adapt to

• Environmental or climatic conditions
• Husbandry system/ diet

b. Traditionally, breeding programs emphasized production traits

• Under-emphasis of health traits (Oltenacu & Algers, 2005)

c. Low-income countries

• New breeds not adapted to local conditions, Eg: lameness in Jersey cows in Kenya (Gitau et al., 1996)
• Need to preserve local gene pool (Lebbie & Ramsay, 1999: Rege et al., 2011)
• Education to avoid in-breeding (Hlimani et al., 2010)