Farm animal welfare: a key component of the sustainability of farming systems
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
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.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0).
References
Aland A., Madec F. (eds) 2009. Sustainable Animal Production. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen, Netherlands. Van Dijk J. E., Gruys E., Mouwen M. J. 2007. Preface to the second edition. In Color Atlas of Veterinary Pathology (Second Edition), ix. Edinburgh: W.B. Saunders.
Broom D.M. 1986. Indicators of poor welfare, British Veterinary Journal, 142 (6): 524-526. doi.org/10.1016/0007-1935(86)90109-0.
Broom D.M. 2010. Animal welfare: an aspect of care, sustainability, and food quality required by the public. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 37: 83–88. https://doi.org/10.3138/jvme.37.1.83
Broom D.M. 2014. Sentience and Animal Welfare. CAB International, Wallingford, UK.
Broom D.M. 2017a. Animal Welfare in the European Union. (pp 75). Brussels: European Parliament Policy Department, Citizen’s Rights and Constitutional Affairs. doi: 10-2861/891355.
Broom D.M. 2017b. Components of sustainable animal production and the use of silvopastoral systems. Revista Brasileira Zootecnia, 46: 683-688. doi.org/10.1590/S1806-92902017000800009
Broom D.M. 2021a. A method for assessing sustainability, with beef production as an example. Biological Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12726
Broom D.M. 2021b. Domestic Animal Behaviour and Welfare, 6th edn. CABI, Wallingford, UK (in press).
Broom D.M., Johnson, K.G. 2019. Stress and Animal Welfare: Key Issues in the Biology of Humans and Other Animals, 2nd edn. (pp 230). Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
Broom D.M., Sena, H., Moynihan, K.L. 2009. Pigs learn what a mirror image represents and use it to obtain information. Animal Behaviour, 78: 1037-1041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.07.027
Dawkins M. (ed.) 2013. Harrison, R. Animal Machines, reprint with new commentaries. Wallingford: CABI.
Fraser D. 2008. Understanding Animal Welfare: the Science in its Cultural Context. Wiley Blackwell, Chichester, UK.
García Pinillos R., Appleby M., Manteca X., Scott-Park F., Smith C., Velarde A. 2016. One welfare - a platform for improving human and animal welfare. Veterinary Record, 179: 412–413. https://doi.org/10.1136/vr.i5470
Hagen K., Broom D. M. 2003. Cattle discrimination between familiar herd members in a learning experiment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 82: 13-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(03)00053-4
Hagen K., Broom D.M. 2004. Emotional reactions to learning in cattle. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 85: 203-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2003.11.007
Harrison R. 1964, Animal Machines. London: Vincent Stuart.
Held S., Mendl M., Devereux C., Byrne R.W. 2000. Social tactics of pigs in a competitive foraging task: the ‘informed forager’ paradigm. Animal Behaviour, 59: 569-576. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1999.1322
Karesh W.B. (Ed.) 2014. One Health. O.I.E. Scientific and Technical Review, 38. (O.I.E, Paris).
Kendrick K.M., Atkins K., Hinton M.R., Borad K.D., Fabre-Nys C., Keverne B. 1995. Facial and vocal discrimination in sheep. Animal Behaviour, 49: 1665-1676. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-3472(95)90088-8
Kilgour R. 1987. Learning and the training of farm animals. In: The Veterinary Clinics of North America, Vol. 3, No. 2, Farm Animal Behavior, ed. E.O. Price, Philadelphia
Langbein J., Nürnberg G., Manteuffel G. 2004. Visual discrimination learning in dwarf goats and associated changes in heart rate and heart rate variability. Physiology and Behavior, 82: 601-609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2004.05.007
Mendl M., Paul E.S. 2008. Do animals live in the present? Current evidence and implications for welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 113:357-382, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2008.01.013
Mendl M., Randle K., Pope S. 2002. Young female pigs can discriminate individual differences in odours from conspecific urine. Animal Behaviour, 64: 97-101. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2002.3040
Rugani R., Fontanari L., Simoni E., Regolin L., Vallortigara G. 2009. Arithmetic in newborn chicks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 276: 2451-2460. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.0044
Swaney W., Kendal J., Capon H., Brown C., Laland K.N. 2001. Familiarity facilitates social learning of foraging behaviour in the guppy. Animal Behaviour, 62: 591–598. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2001.1788
Tarazona A.M., Ceballos M.C., Broom D.M. 2020. Human relationships with domestic and other animals: one health, one welfare, one biology. Animals, 10: 43, 23. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10010043