Veterinarija ir Zootechnika

The livestock sector is of great importance in the agriculture of Ukraine, but it still does not have a system for assessing animal welfare. It is important for Ukraine to create such a system, considering legislative requirements, climatic and cultural factors, peculiarities of animal husbandry. Our goal was to select basic, practical and scientifically based parameters for the system of assessing the cow’s welfare on dairy farms in Ukraine. After the first phase of our research, namely the analysis of modern global protocols, codes and evaluation systems, we determined 57 parameters. In turn, after the second phase, which consisted of expert discussions, 4 parameters were excluded due to their impracticality in Ukraine, difficulty of assessment, and assessment time. Also, as a result of expert discussions, 3 more parameters were added to the system. During the thirdphase, namely testing on two farms, we removed 8 more parameters. So, in the final phase of testing on the third farm, the expediency of using 48 parameters to assess the cows’ welfare on dairy farms in Ukraine was verified and substantiated. It is appropriate to note the universality of this system in relation to different numbers of livestock and systems of keeping animals. We consider it necessary to conduct further testing of parameters on a larger number of dairy farms in Ukraine.