A technology boost for workers in the field

Whilst the world watches the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to see the latest tech innovations in Las Vegas, we’re looking at how technology is helping the animals we work with in developing worlds.

Thanks to funding from the Petplan Charitable Trust, we developed a new Equine Welfare Assessment application for Android tablets. The app has been designed to emulate the Standardised Equine Based Welfare Assessment Tool (SEBWAT), allowing staff to conduct assessments on animals, evaluate, and monitor equine welfare, all digitally. The SEBWAT tool consists of 40 different welfare indicators, which measure a range of characteristics relating to the emotional and physical wellbeing of the animals. The data collected tells us which welfare issues are affecting different groups of equines and allows us to deliver effective interventions to address them.

The app is already in use across Brooke, Kenya, allowing teams to test and evaluate the apps efficiency which is used by many welfare assessors in the field, and will be rolled out across all 11 of their country programs. This has substantially has improved accuracy and efficiency - enabling the assessors to record and communicate data much faster than the previous system.

Standardised Equine Based Welfare Assessment Tool (SEBWAT) to conduct assessments on animals, evaluate, and monitor equine welfare. The tool was originally developed with the University of Bristol in 2002 and was revised for our field conditions in 2011. It gives an overview of the general welfare condition of working equine animals, of individual animals and at a group level. This tool consists of 40 different welfare indicators, which measure a range of characteristics relating to the emotional and physical wellbeing of the animals, including; general health, behavior, body lesions, deliberately-induced conditions, pain-related issues and hooves and limbs. The data collected tells us which welfare issues are affecting different groups of equines and allows us to deliver effective interventions to address them.

Brooke Kenya field staff gave positive feedback, saying that the tool will save a substantial amount of work in terms of data entry and analysis, and reduce the time it takes to get data from the field to desks for analysis. Thanks to Petplan Charitable Trust’s funding, Brooke has delivered the proof of concept for this technology and has been able to roll out the app to more of their animal welfare assessors. This means more assessments get carried out, and we can reach more working equines in need.

“Brooke remains extremely grateful for the continued support of the Petplan Charitable Trust, which has been instrumental in enabling us to develop our app technology. We are excited to see the changes it makes to our field agents and the equines in need.” Said Edwina Silvester, Corporate Account Manager for Brooke.

Watch this video of the welfare app being demonstrated during the pilot