AFLPs reveal the genetic structure of Italian cattle breeds

In the present review some animal-related indicators, possibly relevant for a monitoring scheme of buffalo cow welfare at the farm level, are suggested. The indicators are discussed on the basis of their validity (meaningful with respect to animal welfare), reliability (reflecting the tendency to give the same results on repeated measurements) and feasibility (concerning time and money consume). The attention was focused on the following indicators: excessive thinning or fattening assessed with Body Condition Score (BCS) systems; cleanliness; lameness; resting, social, oral abnormal behaviours; injuries; stockmanship; animal-human relationship; positive indicators (diversity of lying postures, allogrooming, etc.). We have concluded that some of the indicators validated for cattle could be conveniently applied to buffaloes without changes (e.g. injuries and avoidance distance), while others should be appropriately adjusted to this species (e.g. BCS, cleanliness, housing factors). In addition, further studies are needed either to find reliable and feasible registration methods for some indicators (e.g. aggressive and resting behaviours) or to identify additional parameters specific for buffaloes (e.g. prevalence of buffalo cows injected with oxytocin during milking as an indicator of the quality of human-animal relationship).