| Identification and description of most prevalent housing systems |
Lack of prevalence of housing systems Large regional differences Large variability within a system Limited published data on husbandry practices within each system.
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No data were found in the literature on the prevalence of the different housing systems in the EU. Hence the selection of ‘most prevalent’ systems was based on expert knowledge and may have been over or underestimated. |
| Identification of welfare consequences (prevalence, severity, duration), hazards, ABMs and preventive measures |
Literature search characteristics
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The search was performed exclusively in the English language; more studies could have been identified by including references with abstracts in languages other than English, although the search criteria were thorough. In addition, not all synonyms may have not been used in the search strings, and thus fewer hits might have been retrieved
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The search was limited to the database Web of Science all databases. Although the search was complemented by Internet searches and manual searches of the literature, no data were retrieved from other sources (e.g. industry data). More information could have been retrieved by applying different searches and/or methods (e.g. public call for data).
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The studies considered included primary research studies identified through the extensive literature search and grey literature (conference papers, EU reports, book chapters, guidelines, etc.) known to the WG, but an extensive search of the grey literature was not conducted. Therefore, there may be reports and other guidance documents on animal welfare of which the EFSA experts were not aware.
Ranking of relevance of welfare consequences
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Due to the sources of uncertainty listed, the number of relevant welfare consequences, ABMs and/or hazards may have been underestimated.
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