# Developing a Practical Welfare Assessment Tool for Intensive Sheep and Goat Farming in Hot-Arid Regions: Pilot Validation in the United Arab Emirates

## TL;DR

This study created a practical tool to assess the welfare of sheep and goats in hot, arid regions like the UAE, validated by testing it with university students.

## Contribution

A simplified, climate-specific welfare assessment protocol for small ruminants in hot-arid regions, with a new welfare index called ASR-WI.

## Key findings

- Most behavioral and health indicators showed high inter-observer reliability.
- Environmental and tactile indicators like body condition had moderate reliability.
- The ASR-WI combines reliable indicators into a climate-sensitive welfare index.

## Abstract

Small ruminants such as sheep and goats are one of the essential parts of food production in many hot-arid regions, including the United Arab Emirates and countries in the Gulf region. However, production from small ruminants under extreme heat and intensive housing conditions can create challenges for their well-being. This study developed a practical and easy-to-use welfare assessment tool to help farmers, students, and advisors evaluate the welfare of sheep and goats in these environments. We first reviewed many possible indicators of welfare and selected those that are simple to observe, reliable, and relevant to desert climates. We then trained university students to use the tool and tested it on sheep and goats at a research farm. The results showed that most indicators could be scored consistently by different people, especially those related to behaviour and health. A few indicators, such as signs of heat stress or body condition, were more difficult to score consistently across assessors. Based on these findings, we created a welfare index that combines the most reliable measures into a single score. This tool can support better daily management, guide training and education, and help improve the overall welfare of animals kept on farms in hot, challenging environments.

Intensive sheep and goat farming in hot-arid regions faces unique welfare challenges that differ substantially from those encountered in cooler climates; however, few practical and validated assessment tools are specifically designed to assess welfare under such extreme conditions. In this study, the term practical refers to field feasibility under routine farm conditions, limited assessment time, and suitability for reliability-based application, rather than comprehensive validation of welfare outcomes. This study aimed to develop and pilot-test a simplified welfare assessment protocol, based on a reduced set of clearly defined, field-applicable indicators supported by explicit operational definitions and standardized scoring criteria, tailored for the United Arab Emirates, with a specific focus on extreme heat and intensive husbandry conditions. Candidate indicators were identified from validated international sources and screened for applicability to arid climates, meat-oriented production, and intensive systems. The refined indicator set was converted into operational scoring sheets and applied by trained undergraduate animal science students as assessors to 100 animals at an intensive research farm. Inter-observer reliability was calculated using Fleiss’ Kappa to evaluate consistency across assessors. Most behavioural and health indicators demonstrated substantial to almost perfect inter-observer agreement (κ-based), while environmental and some tactile indicators, such as body condition and hydration tests, showed moderate reliability. Based on the most reliable indicators, a climate-sensitive Arid-Hot Small Ruminant Welfare Index (ASR-WI) was developed by weighting four welfare domains—Behaviour and Mental State, Environment, Nutrition, and Health. The findings confirm that a simplified welfare assessment protocol can be reliably implemented under intensive hot-arid conditions when clear scoring criteria and structured assessor training are provided. The resulting protocol and index offer a practical foundation for routine welfare monitoring under intensive hot-arid conditions, as well as for policymaking and future longitudinal research.