bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Improving animal welfare: qualitative and quantitative methodology in the study of farmers’ attitudes
Authors: Kauppinen T , Vainio A , Valros A , Rita H , Vesala KM 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe welfare of production animals provokes wide social discussion among the public, yet, despite this, farmers’ voices and their representations of animal welfare are rarely heard, even though farmers are the ones actually able to improve animal welfare. Farmers’ perceptions of what constitutes animal welfare and how it may be improved can differ from those of consumers and other stakeholders, and therefore it is crucial to understand what farmers mean when they talk about improving animal welfare. To chart farmers’ perceptions, we conducted qualitative interviews and a questionnaire study using the theory of planned behaviour as a conceptual framework. We found that the farmers perceived the improvement of animal welfare as four specific, practical attitude objects (providing animals with a favourable environment; taking care of animal health; treating the animals humanely; and taking care of the farmer's own well-being) and two different but often overlapping general attitudinal dimensions (the instrumental and intrinsic evaluations of animal welfare). The farmers’ intentions to improve animal welfare were best explained by their attitudes towards the specific welfare-improving actions. The concept of the improvement of animal welfare examined in this study outlines measures to improve animal welfare from the farmers’ point of view and discusses their influence. Our study demonstrates that by adapting a valid conceptual framework and applying relevant qualitative and quantitative methods that support each other, we are able to elucidate the underlying meanings and values in farmers’ views on improving animal welfare.
Introduction: Darwinian selection, selective breeding and the welfare of animals
Authors: Kirkwood JK 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe 150th anniversary of the publication ofThe Origin of Species… is a good time to consider how selection can affect welfare — the quality of life. Darwin (1859) quoted Youatt's description of selective breeding: “…the magician's wand, by means of which he may summon into life whatever form and mould he pleases”. Evolution has fairly recently included us humans in its toolbox, alongside its older instruments, such as climate and disease, as significant agents of selection. We have taken to this work vigorously and have summoned into life an extraordinary array of creatures. It is only much more recently, with the development of interest in animal welfare science, that the welfare consequences of this have begun to be critically reviewed. There are two ways that selection can affect welfare: (i) by resulting in changes that make aversive feelings more likely, eg by predisposing to disease or by altering behaviour such as to increase risk of disease or injury, and (ii) by altering sensitivity of the affect systems such that animals feel, for example, more (or less) pain or fear in response to a stimulus than their ancestors would have. Comparing natural and human selection — that is, the simultaneous scrutiny of all aspects of biology as opposed to our selection for one or two features that appeal to us — Darwin (1859) wrote: “Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far ‘truer’ in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship”. The aims of this meeting were to discuss how selection can affect welfare and how we can improve our workmanship in the interests of animal welfare.
Breeding amiable animals? Improving farm animal welfare by including social effects in breeding programmes
Authors: Rodenburg TB , Bijma P , Ellen ED , Bergsma R , de Vries S , Bolhuis JE , Kemp B , van Arendonk JAM 
Published: January 2023

AbstractSocial interactions between individuals, such as co-operation and competition, are key factors in evolution by natural selection. As a consequence, evolutionary biologists have developed extensive theories to understand the consequences of social interactions for response to natural selection. Current genetic improvement programmes in animal husbandry, in contrast, largely ignore the implications of social interactions for the design of breeding programmes. Recently, we have developed theoretical and empirical tools to quantify the magnitude of heritable social effects, ie the heritable effects that animals have on their group mates’ traits, in livestock populations, and to utilise those effects in genetic improvement programmes. Results in commercial populations of pigs and laying hens indicate large heritable social effects, and the potential to substantially increase responses to selection in traits affected by social interactions. In pigs, including social effects into the breeding programme affected aggressive behaviour, both at mixing and in stable groups, indicating changes in the way dominance relationships are established and in aggressiveness. In laying hens, we applied selection between kin-groups to reduce mortality due to cannibalistic pecking. This resulted in a considerable difference in mortality between the low mortality line and the unselected control line in the first generation (20 vs 30%). Furthermore, changes in behavioural and neurobiological responses to stress were detected in the low mortality line, pointing to reduced fearfulness and stress sensitivity. These first results indicate that including social effects into breeding programmes is a promising way to reduce negative social interactions in farm animals, and possibly to also increase positive social interactions, by breeding animals with better social skills.
Genomic dairy cattle breeding: risks and opportunities for cow welfare
Authors: Mark T , Sand⊘e P 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to discuss the potential consequences of modern dairy cattle breeding for the welfare of dairy cows. The paper focuses on so-called genomic selection, which deploys thousands of genetic markers to estimate breeding values. The discussion should help to structure the thoughts of breeders and other stakeholders on how to best make use of genomic breeding in the future. Intensive breeding has played a major role in securing dramatic increases in milk yield since the Second World War. Until recently, the main focus in dairy cattle breeding was on production traits, but during the past couple of decades more emphasis has been placed on a few rough, but useful, measures of traits relevant to cow welfare, including calving ease score and ‘clinical disease or not’; the aim being to counteract the unfavourable genetic association with production traits. However, unfavourable genetic trends for metabolic, reproductive, claw and leg diseases indicate that these attempts have been insufficient. Today, novel genome-wide sequencing techniques are revolutionising dairy cattle breeding; these enable genetic changes to occur at least twice as rapidly as previously. While these new genomic tools are especially useful for traits relating to animal welfare that are difficult to improve using traditional breeding tools, they may also facilitate breeding schemes with reduced generation intervals carrying a higher risk of unwanted side-effects on animal welfare. In this paper, a number of potential risks are discussed, including detrimental genetic trends for non-measured welfare traits, the increased chance of spreading unfavourable mutations, reduced sharing of information arising from concerns over patents, and an increased monopoly within dairy cattle breeding that may make it less accountable to the concern of private farmers for the welfare of their animals. It is argued that there is a need to mobilise a wide range of stakeholders to monitor developments and maintain pressure on breeding companies so that they are aware of the need to take precautionary measures to avoid negative effects on animal welfare and to invest in breeding for increased animal welfare. Researchers are encouraged to further investigate the long-term effects of various breeding schemes that rely on genomic breeding values.
Selection against aggressiveness in pigs at re-grouping: practical application and implications for long-term behavioural patterns
Authors: Turner SP , D’Eath RB , Roehe R , Lawrence AB 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe routine mixing of pigs causes aggression that cannot be greatly reduced by low-cost environmental changes. The variability and heritability of aggressiveness are discussed and both appear adequate to make selection against aggressiveness worthwhile in grower-stage pigs. Selection would require rapid phenotyping of many animals for which a validated indicator genetically correlated to aggressive behaviour is required. Three potential indicators are discussed (attack latency, number of skin lesions and relationship to non-social behavioural traits). Attack latency correlates with post-mixing aggressiveness under research conditions but attacks are delayed under commercial conditions reducing the practicability of the trait for selection. Correlations between aggressiveness and responses to non-social challenges, such as the back-test, are not always consistent. Lastly, the counting of skin lesions is rapid, and the number of lesions has a moderate heritability and is genetically correlated with involvement in aggressive behaviour. The wider effects of selection against post-mixing aggressiveness are discussed. Examining the behavioural strategies of unaggressive pigs, especially their response to defeat, would reveal how selection may alter aggressive tactics. Selection against lesions from mixing is also expected to reduce their number in more stable social conditions, but the implications for aggression between sows and that of sows towards their piglets and humans needs to be investigated. Aggressiveness is genetically correlated with response to handling involving components of social isolation, human presence and novelty. Identifying how unaggressive pigs respond to other challenging situations differing in these components may be worthwhile. Selection against aggression using skin lesions appears to be achievable although the full value of this would benefit from estimations of the genetic correlations with the traits outlined above.
Animal ethics: the capabilities approach
Authors: Tulloch G 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThis paper argues that beliefs about human nature are central for animal ethics as beliefs about animal nature ground human treatment of animals. It shows that what constitutes animal nature is a contested question, and that animals have long been considered inferior to humans in Western thought. In Judaeo-Christian ethics, God gave humans dominion over animals. This exacerbated the long-established prejudice in Western culture in favour of rationality as the defining characteristic of human beings. Rene Descartes was influential in arguing that animals were but machines that moved and made sounds but had no feelings. In such a context it was easy to portray animals as quasi-clockwork animated robots — ‘furry clocks’. Jeremy Bentham first advocated the direct inclusion of animals in our ethical thinking, introducing the concept of sentience, or the capacity to feel pleasure and pain, as the central criterion. Peter Singer's work is in this tradition. He also popularised the notion of speciesism — a bias in favour of one's own species. Now, Martha Nussbaum has introduced a new approach, the capabilities approach, a Quality of Life approach which lists ten capabilities, nine of which apply to animals as part of their nature. It applies to the whole range of animals (and throughout this paper the term ‘animals’ refers to sentient animals unless otherwise specified) — companion animals, farm production animals, animals in zoos, rodeos, museums and laboratories. Her work is the main focus of this paper. It is argued, therefore, that the capabilities approach contributes to understanding the relation of notions of animal nature to animal welfare, and what a good life for animals entails.
How animal welfare standards create and justify realities
Authors: Busch L 
Published: January 2023

AbstractLuc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot tell us that we live in a plural world in which actions are justified in multiple ways. Moreover, Anne Marie Mol argues that things, certainly including animals, are always multiple, their very existence dependent on the particular practices in which they are implicated. Thus, animal welfare policies must be understood in light of both the ways in which animals are ‘practiced’ and the particular justifications provided for these practices. Such policies make claims based on the practices involved in animal-human interactions and are justified based on appeals to the scientific (industrial), civic, market, and domestic worlds, among others. Thus, animal welfare policies must necessarily involve compromises among both the multiple ways in which animals are ‘practiced’ and the multiple ways in which those policies may be justified.
Animal welfare: establishing a dialogue between science and society
Authors: Miele M , Veissier I , Evans A , Botreau R 
Published: January 2023

AbstractFarm animal welfare has become an important issue for the European public, especially in the last two decades when a number of crises (eg Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Avian Influenza) have affected farm animal populations. Public concern about this issue led the European Union to fund the Welfare Quality® project. This project aimed to develop a protocol for assessing animal welfare on farms and at slaughter plants, to identify the main animal welfare problems, and to address possible welfare improvement strategies. In fulfilling these aims, the Welfare Quality® project incorporated inputs frombothscience and society. This was crucial, as the public perception of what constitutes ‘animal welfare’ sometimes differs from animal science-based definitions. Furthermore, these differences are often interwoven with broader variations in ethical- and value-based understandings about human/non-human animal relationships. This paper presents the steps that we adopted to establish a dialogue between science and society during the construction of the Welfare Quality® assessment protocols. This dialogue involved numerous interactions between animal scientists, social scientists and members of the public. These interactions took several forms, including: meetings, conferences, workshops, websites, newsletters, interviews, focus groups, and citizen and farmers juries. Here, we address four key moments within this dialogue: the development of the initial list of twelve welfare criteria; the consumer focus groups; the development of the Welfare Quality® scoring system; and the citizen juries. In particular, we focus on the results of the focus groups and citizen juries. The focus groups were conducted in France, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Hungary and the citizen juries were carried out in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Norway. Drawing on this research, we highlight the similarities and differences between societal understandings of farm animal welfare and the views of scientific experts. Furthermore, and crucially, we outline how the animal scientists took account of societal opinion when developing their farm animal welfare assessment tools.
Relationships between multiple welfare indicators measured in individual chickens across different time periods and environments
Authors: Nicol CJ , Caplen G , Edgar J , Richards G , Browne WJ 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe assessment of animal welfare requires the collection of multiple indicators of welfare but quantification of their associations in different contexts is lacking. Previous studies have examined correlations between a few indicators, but not relationships between many different indicators, or between indicators taken from the same individuals in more than one environment. We housed 60 hens for six sequential 35-day phases in different pen environments. During each phase, a series of behavioural and physiological measures was taken for every bird: body and plumage condition, surface body temperature, behaviours observed in the home pens and during test periods, tonic immobility, physiological blood profiles, and faecal sample composition. Most variation in nearly all measures was not explained by either individual bird or grouping effects but varied across phases within the birds. Acknowledging this, we examined correlations between all parameters at the phase within-bird level, selecting a conservativeP-value. A consistent set of correlations showed that a slow approach response and alert behaviour in the novel object test was associated with higher bodyweight, lower body temperature and lower acute phase protein, heterophil: lymphocyte ratio and blood glucose level. A cluster analysis confirmed these correlations. Other important parameters known to be linked to the hens’ environmental preference (eg comfort behaviour) were independent of the set described above. We conclude that statistical techniques can reveal patterns of independence and redundancy in the collection of behavioural and physiological measures of welfare.
Interpretation of ambiguous spatial stimuli in cats
Authors: Tami G , Torre C , Compagnucci M , Manteca X 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe aim of this paper was to develop a protocol to study the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli in cats as a measure of welfare. Ten cats were trained to discriminate between a rewarded position (R) and an unrewarded one (U), as measured by the approach latency for each position. After discrimination, they were exposed to three ambiguous unrewarded positions (R-near, R/U-equidistant, U-near) distributed at intermediate points between R and U. Approach latency increased as increasing the distance from the rewarded position: latencies to approach R and R-near were significantly shorter than for R/U-equidistant, U-near and U. This protocol should be further studied to assess its effectiveness in highlighting differences according to the welfare level of individual cats.
Potential behavioural indicators of post-operative pain in male laboratory rabbits following abdominal surgery
Authors: Farnworth MJ , Walker JK , Schweizer KA , Chuang C-L , Guild S-J , Barrett CJ , Leach MC , Waran NK 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThis study aimed to identify behaviours that could be used to assess post-operative pain and analgesic efficacy in male rabbits. In consideration of the ‘Three Rs’, behavioural data were collected on seven male New Zealand White rabbits in an ethically approved experiment requiring abdominal implantation of a telemetric device for purposes other than behavioural assessment. Prior to surgery, rabbits were anaesthetised using an isoflurane/oxygen mix and given Carprofen (2 mg kg−1) as a peri-operative analgesic. Rabbits were housed individually in standard laboratory cages throughout. Data were collected at three time periods: 24-21 h prior to surgery (T1) and, post-surgery, 0-3 h (T2) and 3-6 h (T3). Behavioural changes were identified using Observer XT, significance of which was assessed using a Friedman's test for several related samples. The frequency or duration of numerous pre-operative behaviours was significantly reduced in T2 and T3, as compared to T1. Conversely, novel or rare behaviours had either first occurrence or significant increase in T2 into T3 as compared to T1, these include ‘full-body-flexing’, ‘tight-huddling’, ‘hind-leg-shuffling’. We conclude that reduced expression of common pre-operative behaviours and the appearance of certain novel post-operative behaviours may be indicative of pain in rabbits. Behaviours identified as increased in T2 as compared to T1 but not consistently elevated into T3 were considered separately due to the potentially confounding effect of anaesthesia recovery. These included lateral lying, ‘drawing-back’, ‘staggering’ and ‘closed eyes’. We postulate that for effective application of best-practice post-operative care, informed behavioural observation can provide routes by which carers may identify requirements for additional post-operative analgesia. Additionally, improvement of the peri-operative pain management regimen may be required to ameliorate the immediate effects of abdominal surgery. Comparisons with other studies into post-operative pain expression in rabbits suggest behavioural indicators of pain may differ, depending on housing and surgical procedure.
Separating a horse from the social group for riding or training purposes: a descriptive study of human-horse interactions
Authors: Jørgensen GH Meisfjord , Fremstad KE , Mejdell CM , Bøe KE 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate how difficult it was to halter and separate a horse(Equus caballus)from a group for riding or training purposes and to describe how human-horse interactions could affect this common procedure. A total of 20 different horse groups, with a minimum of five horses in each, were studied on 14 farms in Norway, from June to October 2007. On each farm, information about the facilities, the horse and the handler was recorded. In each group, the horse owner or keeper (handler) was asked to enter the group, approach his/her horse, halter it and lead it out through the gate, then keep the horse standing out of sight from other horses for two minutes. The entire procedure was video recorded and the behaviour of the target horse, handler and other horses was subsequently scored. Only one of the 100 horses moved away from the handler when approached. Ninety-six percent of the target horses followed their handler without showing any resistance. In 75% of the tests, the other horses did not interact with the target horse and/or handler. At the gate, 26% of the handlers did not turn the target horse around before closing the gate, thereby placing themselves in a vulnerable position, with their body in very close proximity to the horse's hind legs. In conclusion, separating a horse from its group can be considered relatively safe and unproblematic, provided good management practices and trained handlers.
Goldfish in a tank: the effect of substrate on foraging behaviour in aquarium fish
Authors: Smith A , Gray H 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe welfare of captive animals is influenced by their ability to express natural behaviours. Foraging is one behaviour that may be particularly important in this respect; many species will continue to work for food even when it is freely available. The role of substrate, and in particular particle size, on the foraging behaviour of goldfish(Carassius auratus)was examined through three repeated measures experiments. In the first, tanks were set up with five uniform substrates: plastic grid, coarse sand, fine gravel, pebbles, and cobbles. In the second, fish were provided with a choice between coarse sand and fine gravel, fine gravel and pebbles, and pebbles and cobbles. In the third, they were provided with two choices between coarse sand and cobbles, one where the sand contained more food and one where the cobbles did. Our results show that particle size significantly affected the amount of time goldfish spent foraging, and that goldfish exhibited foraging behaviour even in the absence of a substrate they can manipulate. Goldfish foraged longest when provided with coarse sand. Fish foraged significantly longer over smaller particle size substrates when given a choice, although they did not distinguish between the two finest substrates, coarse sand and gravel. Increases in total time spent foraging were achieved through more, rather than longer, bouts. Food density did not significantly alter preference for smaller particle substrates. In general, coarse sand (1.5 mm) was found to be the most appropriate substrate in terms of facilitating natural foraging behaviours. These findings are discussed with respect to the welfare and husbandry of goldfish and aquarium fish in general.