Dr. Christine (Tina) Leeb
Dr. Christine (Tina) Leeb
During my studies of veterinary medicine I was interested in animal behaviour, animal health, appropriate husbandry and breeds, but also in more “exotic” topics such as homoeopathy and tropical veterinary medicine. During the summers I was milking cows on an alpine farm, where my love for working with cows, goats and pigs deepened.
My doctoral thesis “Assessment of housing systems for pregnant sows in practise – management, husbandry and animal based parameters” was carried out at the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Animal Welfare (Prof. Troxler). For the following four years I was working as “Matthew Eyton Resident for Farm Animal Health and Welfare“at the University of Bristol, which I completed with the „RCVS Certificate for Animal welfare science, ethics and law– CertWEL“. The species and topics I had the pleasure to work with were versatile: Fundamental research on feather pecking, welfare assessment of finishing pigs and working equines in Kenya, improvement of farm animal health by “health and welfare planning”. As a Postdoc I was working on the DEFRA project „Incorporation of existing animal welfare assessment techniques into organic certification and farming“, developing and applying animal based parameters for certification of organic farms.
After those wonderful British years I worked at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Veterinary University in Vienna, being responsible for herd management, teaching and research. Together with students I was able to teach with and to learn from the University pig, sheep and goat herd – an important experience! After that the projects “BEP- Implementation and Monitoring of Health and Welfare Plans in Austrian organic pig farms”, „CoreOrganic–ANIPLAN“and „CoreOrganic–CORE-Pig“ were funded. Therefore I decided to move to Boku in order to apply and intensify my knowledge and enthusiasm in the area of on farm welfare assessment and improvement.
My favourite occupations are included in my job –travelling and communicating with people and animals. Additionally I love to go hiking, cooking, gardening, bird watching…
