Farm animal well-being and intensive production systems

The Veterinary Journal, 2013

In 2012, the World Organisation for Animal Health adopted 10 'General Principles for the Welfare of Animals in Livestock Production Systems' to guide the development of animal welfare standards. The General Principles draw on half a century of scientific research relevant to animal welfare: (1) how genetic selection affects animal health, behaviour and temperament; (2) how the environment influences injuries and the transmission of diseases and parasites; (3) how the environment affects resting, movement and the performance of natural behaviour; (4) the management of groups to minimize conflict and allow positive social contact; (5) the effects of air quality, temperature and humidity on animal health and comfort; (6) ensuring access to feed and water suited to the animals' needs and adaptations; (7) prevention and control of diseases and parasites, with humane euthanasia if treatment is not feasible or recovery is unlikely; (8) prevention and management of pain; (9) creation of positive human-animal relationships; and (10) ensuring adequate skill and knowledge among animal handlers. Research directed at animal welfare, drawing on animal behaviour, stress physiology, veterinary epidemiology and other fields, complements more established fields of animal and veterinary science and helps to create a more comprehensive scientific basis for animal care and management.

Animal Welfare

Animals play many important roles in humans' lives. They are a source of food, companionship and wealth. Increasing global demand for food has resulted in the intensification of livestock production. Intensive production systems are aimed at maximising profits by rearing more animals on smaller pieces of land in order to produce more food. The other systems of animal production are semi-intensive and extensive production systems. Of the three systems, the semi-intensive system offers the best option for enhancing animal welfare in all species. Animal welfare can be defined in many ways depending on people's views of animals. The underlying theme of animal welfare is to enhance physical and mental health of animals. Despite improvements in livestock farming techniques over the years, the welfare of farm animals remains a major concern. The major welfare concerns in the livestock industry relate to the rearing and management of dairy calves; the rearing of sows in gestation and farrowing crates; the housing of layer chickens in battery cages and the restriction of feed in broiler parent stock. Good animal husbandry is a basis for promoting the welfare of animals.

Livestock Production Science, 2001

The measurement of farm animal well-being has evolved through several stages to return to the most agreed-upon system of evaluation that uses a multidisciplinary approach. The multidisciplinary approach includes measures of animal behavior, physiology, anatomy and health and immunity. However, the multidisciplinary approach must be used in the context of other important society issues including: food safety, environmental protection, worker health and safety, economics, international trade, domestic protection, public perception and consumer economics. Only by taking into account all society issues, can the multidisciplinary approach yield useful information to the modern consumer in a manner that can develop sustainable animal production systems.

Veterinarski Glasnik, 2021

Consumers of food and other products now demand sustainability of production methods and, for most people, the welfare of production animals is an important component of sustainability. Products are not considered to be of good quality unless the welfare of the production animals is good. This is part of a more general change in knowledge that there are few differences between humans and other animal species, with the conclusion that each individual life should be valued and that causing poor welfare to a farmed animal is morally wrong. All vertebrate animals and some invertebrates are now shown to be sentient, that is they have the capacity to have feelings. There have been major advances in animal welfare science so that housing and management systems that result in poor welfare of the animals are now identified and every producer needs to change their systems and methods to ensure good welfare and avoid all of the worst welfare problems.

An understanding of animal behaviour is important for animal production and for animal welfare. An example of an area where there is new information is domestic animal learning. A second example concerns social networks. The development of human-animal relationships has been found to be substantially affected by the early experiences that the animals have of humans. With careful handling when young, later handling during general management and loading becomes much easier. The welfare of an individual is its state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment. This definition refers to a characteristic of an individual and to the state of the individual on a scale varying from very good to very poor. Welfare concerns all of the mechanisms for coping: involving physiology, behaviour, feelings and pathological responses. Welfare is a wider term than health but health is an important part of welfare. In order to enforce laws and standards, animal welfare outcome indicators are useful. Resumo Nova informação acerca produção animal do comportamento e bem-estar. O comportamento animal é importante para a produção e para o bem-estar. Um exemplo da nova informação é do aprendizado dos animais domesticos. Um outro exemplo é a análise das redes sociais. O desenvolvimento das relações entre os humanos e os animais podem modificado de acordo com as experiências. Com

Animal welfare is a growing issue in modern farming systems due to a perceived mismatch between animals’ actual environments and their natural habitats, acknowledgement that animals are sentient beings, and societal awareness not only that animal production matters but also that the production methods matter. Welfare implies that the biological needs of animals are fulfilled and, more importantly, that the animals feel “well.” What emotions animals can feel is now documented, and methods have been developed to assess how well an animal feels. The welfare of an individual depends on its living environment, genetics, and past experiences, with the result that each individual may perceive a triggering situation differently. Farming system design needs to evolve to encompass the welfare provided to animals based on actual living conditions and the animals’ background. Improvements have been proposed so that it is now possible to integrate animal welfare into farming conditions that meet...

Biotehnologija u stocarstvu

The farm animal welfare science has undergone a thorny path of development, often disputed because of its lack of measurability and the purpose of existence. At the very beginning, primarily based on moral and ethical attitudes, over time it pointed to the importance of meeting the needs of animals and the consequences of their neglect and exhaustion in the conditions of intensive livestock production. An important segment of its development was the definition and development of methodologies for the assessment of welfare indicators, which made it measurable and accepted as a scientific discipline with the knowledge applicable and useful in modern production systems. This paper is a concise review of the evolution of the animal welfare science, but also an indication of its future in the context of the development of "symbiotic" connections with the concepts of sustainable agriculture and food safety as integral parts of the modern ecological movement arose from a unified ...

The aim of this review is studying environmental conditions and animal welfare from the perspective of animal science. The welfare of animals is the quality of life that the animal thinks to it. Animals develop cognitive-emotional systems of welfare needs to confront variable environment. Animal scientists consider animal feelings and the ability to cope with the environment as animal welfare. The role of Rancher's behavior in livestock welfare and productivity has received serious attention from researchers in recent years, because rancher's behaviour and interactions have considerable effects on livestock's behavior, welfare and productivity. Therefore understanding the behaviour of rancher's and the factors that contribute to this behaviour are necessary. The results indicated that when the relationship between human and animal improves, welfare and productivity level in animal increases in a way that the quality of Rancher's behavior has considerable impact on welfare and productivity level of animals under their care.

Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia, 2010

To keep the position in being a world-wide exporter of chicken meat, Brazil must meet international quality standards, always seeking alternative resources of improvement, without increasing production costs, including litter quality, requirements of animal welfare and environment affairs, such as the use and reuse of broiler litter. Researches are performed in the areas of animal welfare, environment, animal behavior and use of modern climatization technology improving the quality of the environment created to raise broilers, also trying to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and global warming in the environment, becoming a sustainable production system. This paper has a bibliographic revision of the subject mentioned above, intending to show a state-of-art key factors related to a new concept of broiler environment and welfare.