Deer Welfare Flashcards
What are some of the outcomes of live capture in deer?
- high injury rates
- high mortality rates
- exertion and stress-induced post-capture myopathy
What are the proposed changes to existing minimum standards for deer welfare?
- stockpersonship
- animal handling and restraint
- feed and water
- shade and shelter
- farm and off-paddock facilities
- hand-reared and orphaned fawns
- weaning
- pre-transport selection and management
- disease and injury control
What are the proposals for new minimum standards in deer welfare?
- deer behavior
- selection and breed
- mating, semen collection, and reproductive technologies
- milking deer
- fawning
- velvet antler removal
- end-of-life management
- on-farm humane killing
- contingency planning
Where is the existing deer welfare code mostly directed?
- husbandry
- handling
What does the current deer code of welfare not cover?
- velvet antler removal
- castration
What are the eight parts of the Code of Welfare for deer?
- general requirements
- stockmanship
- food and water
- shelter
- husbandry practices
- animal health, disease, and injury control
- pre-transport selection
- quality management
Who can perform velvet removal?
- a veterinarian
- a supervised veterinarian undergraduate
- an approved owner of stags/an approved employee in accordance with the National Velveting Standards Body (NVSB) program
What are the rules around tourniquets in relation to velvet removal?
- must be able to apply appropriately
- must be able to remove quickly
- must be able to clean easily
What are the rules about local anesthetic in relation to velvet removal?
- 1 ml/cm
- bellowing tourniquet
- needle advanced at an angle
- find it easiest and fastest to use a fascination gun (set at 2ml) attached to a local flexipak
Why must velvet removal take 0ace under veterinary supervision?
- to ensure the welfare of the animals is protected by removal taking place in a manner that complies with the Animal Welfare Act 1999, which classifies it as a “controlled medical procedure”
- to ensure that the restricted drugs used are administered in accordance with the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act 1997 (ACVM act)
What is the NVSB summary?
The NVSB certified velvetier programs allows deer farmers to remove velvet antler from their own stags under controlled conditions and veterinary supervision
What are the possible NVSB certifications?
- chemical restraint (with local analgesia)
- local anesthetic (with physical restraint)
- naturOTM ring procedures for Spikers (including the cable tie method)
- naturOTM rings in Fallow Deer
What is the first stage in NVSB certification?
- requires passing a multiple choice theory test in whichever sections they wish to be certified in
What is the second stage in NVSB certification?
- a visit conducted by the supervising veterinarian and covers facilities, a practical assessment, and oral questions
- beforehand, the velvetier will undertake training from the supervising vet to attain competence to at least the minimum standards in the manual
- the practical assessment includes the supervising veterinarian observing at least 3 stags being velvetted
- if, despite passing the evaluation, the supervising vet considers that the welfare of the animals requires further supervision of the applicant, the vet has a duty to undertake more supervisory visits at the applicant’s expense (though questions and assessments don’t need to be repeated)
What is the third stage in NVSB certification?
- an assessment conducted by an independent assessing veterinarian, including assessment of facilities, practical assessment, and oral questions
- applicant must be competent to at least the minimum standards specified in the manual
- the assessment included the vet observing at least 3 stags being velvetted
- the applicants supervising veterinarian organizes the assessing veterinarian visit (may combine stage 2 and 3)
What is the annual supervisory visit in velvet harvesting?
- each velvetter certified for Local Anesthetic and Chemical Restraint must have a supervisory veterinarian visit at the start of each new season to assess theoretical and practical competence, using the same criteria as initial training
What must be included in the records of velvet removal?
- stag numbers
- drug usage
- deaths and unusual reactions
- use of NaturOTM rings
- details of the identification tags used
