Animal welfare (South Mimms, England)最新文献

A kitten's early experiences have lasting effects on adult behaviour and welfare. Domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus) breeders play an important role in shaping these outcomes through their knowledge and understanding of early environment and socialisation. This study aimed to investigate Swedish pedigree cat breeders' knowledge, attitudes and current socialisation practices. An online survey was distributed via social media to active Swedish breeders of pedigree cats (n = 133). The data were analysed primarily using descriptive statistics with several areas for improvement being identified. More breeders stated the importance of multiple people handling the kittens than they applied in practice. Significantly more breeders reported that it was important for kittens to interact with other companion animals than they demonstrated in practice. Gaps in knowledge were identified regarding the optimal age for socialisation, handling quantity, and the heritability of traits relating to the approach to new experiences. Breeders generally expressed positive attitudes towards socialisation and wished they could have prioritised it more. These findings have important implications for animal welfare, as insufficient early socialisation can increase the risk of fear-related behaviours and reduced overall cat welfare later in life. In conclusion, this study, although based on a convenience sample, provides an important first step towards understanding and improving kitten socialisation practices in Sweden and elsewhere.

Donkeys (Equus asinus) play a vital role in supporting rural and peri-urban livelihoods across Kenya, yet their welfare remains poorly characterised and often compromised by human practices and environmental pressures. This study examined welfare challenges and opportunities across seven counties representing urban, high-potential, semi-arid, and arid production systems. A total of 392 donkeys were assessed using the Standardised Equine-Based Welfare Assessment Tool (SEBWAT), and structured interviews were conducted with owners to capture practices and environmental contexts. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression. Approximately 80% of donkeys exhibited at least one welfare concern. Common problems included poor body condition (48.2%), spinal pain (46.9%), lameness (33.4%), and mutilations (41.6%). Variation was observed across systems with donkeys in urban and high-potential areas showing more spinal sensitivity and behavioural distress. Key predictors of poor welfare included work type, terrain, limited veterinary access, housing, owner negligence, and donkey age ≥ 6 years. Owners prioritised community education (64.5%), veterinary outreach (52.0%), humane handling (27.3%), and improved access to feed and water (21.9%) as key interventions. These findings provide insights for designing targeted, context-specific interventions. A holistic approach addressing both human and environmental challenges is essential for safeguarding donkey welfare and protecting livelihoods.

The intensification of pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) production systems raises concerns regarding animal welfare, particularly during pre-slaughter conditions, a phase associated with significant stress. Saliva is increasingly recognised as a non-invasive matrix for detecting stress-related biomarkers in pigs. This preliminary study aimed to explore salivary protein changes in pigs subjected to two distinct pre-slaughter conditions at the slaughterhouse, improved (Group A) and stressful (Group B), by tandem mass tag (TMT)-based proteomics. Proteomic analysis of saliva from three pigs per group revealed 13 proteins with a statistically significant difference in relative abundance between the groups. Group B showed elevated levels of proteins linked to metabolic stress, inflammation, and coagulation, such as cystatin-C and fibrinogen chains, while proteins like vimentin and follistatin-related protein were decreased. Cystatin-C and vimentin were further validated by immunoassays in 12 additional pigs per group, confirming their differential abundance. These findings suggest that salivary cystatin-C and vimentin, along with the other 11 proteins that showed changes at proteomics, may serve as candidate biomarkers of acute stress at slaughter. While further validation is required, our results support the potential of salivary proteomics for welfare monitoring in livestock.

Although there are public expectations regarding improvements to farm animal welfare, farmers' well-being remains largely overlooked. This is particularly concerning given the high prevalence of physical and mental health issues among farming populations. As key stakeholders in the implementation of animal welfare practices, farmers play an essential role in welfare outcomes. Improving animal welfare may require addressing farmers' own well-being. To support this hypothesis, it is necessary to examine the relationship between farmers' well-being and the welfare of their animals. This scoping review aimed to: (1) map the methods used to describe relationships between farmer well-being and animal welfare in primary research; and (2) compile pieces of evidence of such relationships. Following the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews, the same search was carried out on three databases (Web of Science Core Collection, MEDLINE, CABI digital library). Twenty-two articles from the 10,189 retrieved met the inclusion criteria. Results underscored the need to standardise methods to enable cross-study comparisons, as different questionnaires were used to assess the same construct (e.g. four for psychological stress), and none of the animal welfare indicators were fully comparable. Moreover, 94 pieces of evidence regarding the relationships between farmer well-being and the welfare of their animals were compiled. Ninety-three pieces described positive associations where improved farmer well-being was associated with improved welfare of their animals, and vice versa. This result suggests that welfare improvement strategies on farms should address not only animal welfare, but also farmer well-being. The results therefore support a One Welfare approach on commercial farms.

In Australia, nearly twenty million cattle and sheep pass through saleyards annually, with potentially significant impacts on their welfare. This study documented the mortality rate occurring from January 2021 to December 2024 at a sample of saleyards of cattle and sheep in New South Wales, Australia, and identified possible risk factors. A database of the number of animals sold and deceased, either on arrival or while contained at each saleyard on each sale day, was created from the National Livestock Identification System. Descriptive statistics, and uni- and multivariable linear regression were used to examine risk factors for mortality. The mean sale mortality rates were 0.016 and 0.096% for cattle and sheep, respectively. In the univariate model, cattle sale mortality rate was associated with the maximum daily temperature, year, size of saleyard, and saleyard location, while minimum daily temperature, region, and saleyard location were associated with sale mortality of sheep. In the multivariable model, size of saleyard, saleyard location, month and year were significant predictors for the cattle mortality rate, while saleyard location and minimum daily temperature remained significant predictors of sheep mortality rate. Furthermore, sale mortality rate was eight times higher in sheep than in cattle, and sheep mortality was higher than values reported in the literature for farms. Further studies investigating the cause of death, journey conditions, and management practices of saleyards are recommended.

This study investigated the effect of group size on tail damage and growth performance in growing-finishing pigs with intact tails. A total of 432 pigs were housed indoors on fully-slatted floors and assigned to either small (nine pigs per pen) or large (18 pigs per pen) groups, with equal space and resource allocation per pig. No environmental enrichment was provided. From nine to 23 weeks of age, pigs were monitored weekly for tail injuries using a 5-point scale (0 = no injury, 4 = partial or total loss). The most severe score observed during each four-week period was used for analysis, and outbreaks were defined as the occurrence of one or more pigs per pen with a tail score ≥ 2. Group size did not influence average daily gain, feed intake, or feed to gain ratio. However, pigs housed in small groups experienced more frequent and severe tail injuries, including a higher proportion of removals due to tail wounds. In contrast, pigs in large groups were more likely to receive healed tail scores (score 1) or mild injuries (score 2), and experienced fewer removals. While these results suggest that tail damage may be less severe in larger groups, the total number of pigs affected by tail biting was similar across treatments. These findings highlight the importance of managing tail-damage severity and suggest that group size can influence welfare outcomes in systems where pigs are raised with intact tails.

While animal welfare is a growing global concern, there has been very little research into how it is understood in Iran. Cultural, religious, and legal factors influence attitudes and practices in ways not addressed by existing research. This study provides culturally grounded insights for improvement of animal welfare in Iran. Utilising a validated survey tool, we investigated the attitudes of Iranians toward the welfare of farmed, companion, and wild animals. A total of 325 responses were collected. The findings indicate that animal welfare is considered important to Iranians, with the majority expressing interest in improving the welfare practices. Despite varying degrees of familiarity with different animal species, there was a consensus on the importance of enacting laws to protect animal welfare. Most participants agreed that chickens feel pain (92.9%) and emotions (79%), whereas fewer attributed these capacities to fish, with 63.6% acknowledging pain and 59.5% acknowledging emotions. Furthermore, most of the participants agreed that animals should not endure pain in the slaughter process (97.8% agreement). While the majority of participants agreed that pre-slaughter stunning was better for the animals (78.7%), only 51.7% agreed that they would prefer to eat meat from animals that had been stunned; reflecting the traditionally held views regarding the role of stunning in Halal meat production. The results of the current study support previous findings suggesting that concern for animals may be a universal human inclination, although, in Iran, attitudes towards specific species and agricultural practices are also shaped by religious perspectives.

Zoos and aquaria have an ethical responsibility to ensure the welfare of the animals in their care. Developing and implementing an animal welfare strategy is central to fulfilling this obligation. An animal welfare strategy is a comprehensive framework that integrates animal welfare into all zoo operations, policies, and procedures, aiming to embed effective animal welfare practices across the entire organisation and extend these practices into the broader community. The strategy should reflect a clear ongoing commitment to animal welfare, incorporate the latest developments in animal welfare science, ensure an evidence-based approach, and be fully integrated into all policies and procedures. In addition, the strategy should provide a clear framework, measurable goals, and key performance indicators (KPIs), to ensure a structured, objective approach to animal welfare monitoring and enhancement. Creating a strategy involves nine key steps. Structuring the strategy around these steps through the lens of four primary domains: animal care; animal welfare assessment; communication; and evaluation, ensures a comprehensive institution-wide commitment to animal welfare. Once established, the strategy should be sufficiently flexible to ensure continued self-examination and improvement, and an ability to incorporate key insights from the rapidly developing field of animal welfare science. Implementing such a strategy requires sustained effort, strong leadership, and an organisational culture that supports shared values and continual improvement.

Previously, consideration of purebred cat welfare has focused heavily on links between specific breeds and their predispositions to disease, extreme morphology, and behavioural traits. While these are certainly important to consider, negative messaging about purebred cats is often poorly evidenced and can be alienating to owners and breeders, with consequent limited or even negative welfare gain. Negative focus on individual breeds also risks overlooking the wider picture, where propagation of genetic traits that impinge upon welfare should be avoided across all cats (Felis catus). An account of purebred cat welfare must also consider husbandry and breeding practices, new experimental breeds and motivations behind changing acquisition trends. This review used a framework based on the five welfare needs from UK legislation, bolstered by published feline quality of life assessment tools, to review the literature on purebred cats. This aimed to re-orient the discussion on purebred cat welfare away from excessive focus on individual breed statements and instead explore broader, generalisable evidence-based welfare considerations. The review concludes that purebred cat welfare in the UK falls short of ideal in numerous ways. These include more obvious conformational concerns, such as osteochondrodysplasia in Scottish Folds and the increasingly flattened faces of brachycephalic cats. Several areas where strong evidence is lacking were also identified, including current breeding conditions, impact of morphological changes on social behaviour, and the breeding and keeping of hybrid cats. More evidence on the motivations behind owning cats with specific morphology is also required to better target interventions to improve the lives of cats.

The welfare of fast-growing broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) raised in intensive farming systems is of global concern for the public, animal advocates and animal welfare scientists. This study investigated the animal husbandry factors which affect broiler chicken welfare on farms in West Java, Indonesia. Foot-pad dermatitis (FPD) and hock burn (HB) were used as welfare indicators with data collected from 14 farms across West Java. Welfare Quality® data were collected from 150 chickens from six locations on each farm, a total of 2,104 chickens, alongside data on the husbandry management and micro-climate inside the chicken house. Cumulative Link Mixed Models (CLMM) were employed using the ordinal package in R to analyse environmental predictors of welfare indicators. Litter quality and breed of chicken were predictors of FPD, whereas litter quality, bodyweight, light intensity, humidity, wind and CO₂ predicted HB. There was wide variation in the FPD scores between farms. Sampling locations at the door end of the chicken houses showed consistently worse litter scores, welfare outcomes, and higher variation in micro-climate compared to areas near the negative pressure fans. Chickens were usually sent for slaughter at 32 days, which resulted in better welfare outcomes compared to other countries reported in the literature, where chickens are usually slaughtered at an older age and heavier bodyweight. This research could form the basis for better welfare standards on broiler chicken farms in Indonesia.