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Animal welfare
Animal welfare: translating science into practice
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David Fraser University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
7.1
Introduction
Animal welfare science developed in response to concerns about how human actions affect the welfare or “quality of life” of animals. The field, therefore, is an applied field where the research is ultimately done so that it can guide how people actually treat and affect animals. However, when scientists conduct animal welfare research, the ways in which it may influence practice are not always obvious. This chapter looks at the bridge between science and practice, including the various policy steps that often lead to the science being applied.
7.2
The structure of animal welfare science
It is useful to think of animal welfare science as occurring at three levels of application. Some fundamental research provides basic understanding of the nature and dimensions of animal welfare. Examples include (1) studies of the cognitive and affective capacity of animals including their capacity for pain, fear, frustration, boredom, and enjoyment; (2) studies of the environments that animals prefer and the types of behavior they are motivated to perform; (3) traditional veterinary studies, especially in pathology and epidemiology, that help to understand risk factors for disease and injury; (4) studies of environmental physiology to identify animals’ needs for warmth, shelter, shade, and ventilation; (5) nutritional studies that identify the nutritional needs of animals; and (6) studies of the evolutionary history of animals as a source of insights into the conditions for which the various species are adapted. Basic studies such as these can help to inform the management of animals, for example by allowing managers to design environments and management practices that are suited to the animals’ adaptations, needs, preferences, and cognitive abilities.
This text draws on several previous publications including Fraser (2006, 2015), and Fraser and Koralesky (2017) which presents some of the same ideas specifically in the context of the dairy sector. I am grateful to the publishers for allowing me to rework some of that material here.
Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-101215-4.00007-9 Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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A second level of research develops ways of assessing animal welfare that can be used to understand the effects of environments, management practices, and other actions. Such “animal welfare indicators” include signs and signals of affective states such as fear, pain, contentment, and pleasure; measures of health and body condition; behavioral abnormalities such as stereotyped or self-injuring behavior; basic health measures such as the prevalence of lameness in a herd or flock; and measures based on stress physiology such as changes in heart rate, in stress-related hormones, and in “downstream” measures such as immune competence. Such assessment methods are often used in further research, for example to identify the welfare consequences of specific housing and handling practices. They are also used directly by people in assessing animal welfare in practical situations. A third level of animal welfare science involves “practice-oriented” research which relates directly to specific practices—including management methods and environments where animals are kept—and which is often operationalized in animal welfare standards. This type of highly applied research, which is especially relevant to this chapter, takes several forms (Fraser and Koralesky, 2017). These are reviewed in more detail later after some background is provided about how science influences practice through animal welfare standards.
7.3
Translating science into practice and policy
In certain cases, animal welfare research has been communicated directly to potential users and they have simply adopted new practices. For example, Grandin (1997) has made numerous innovations in the design and operation of facilities for moving animals at slaughter plants, and these, after being introduced appropriately to users, have now been widely adopted (Grandin, 2003). Similarly, research has shown that traditional feeding levels for dairy calves were so low that they created lasting hunger and retarded the normal growth of the animals (Vieira et al., 2008), and on this basis many dairy farmers have now increased the feed allowance for calves. This direct transfer of science into practice occurs especially in cases where an innovation simplifies animal management, improves productivity, or reduces production cost. For example, the use of pain control during the disbudding of dairy calves is often reported to make the task simpler to perform, and perhaps for this reason the practice became widely adopted in some parts of the world without being mandatory. Similarly, the use of artificial heat for newborn piglets became the norm on pig farms once it became clear that young piglets seek, and survive better at, very warm temperatures. And many other actions that are important for animal welfare—such as maintaining stunning equipment at slaughter plants or keeping ammonia levels low in barns—are often adopted as practices that prevent losses and inefficiency as well as improving animal welfare. In other cases, however, little change occurs even after research has shown a clear benefit for animal welfare. For example, it has long been recognized that
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animal welfare can be improved by providing pregnant sows with high-fiber diets (Robert et al., 1993) and by the use of polled genetics to avoid the need to dehorn cattle (Stookey and Goonewardene, 1996), yet the uptake of these practices has generally been modest or variable. In such cases, animal welfare research has often been put into practice through the intermediate step of being adopted into some type of animal welfare standard or policy in the form of regulations, codes of practice, policies created by food companies, and labeling programs that allow consumers to purchase food produced according to defined standards (Fraser, 2006; Mench, 2008). For simplicity, these will be called “animal welfare standards” in what follows.
7.4
Types of requirements in animal welfare standards
The key elements of animal welfare standards are the actual “requirements” that they contain. These set out what users of the standards are required to do in order to be in compliance. Requirements have been classified in different ways, but one widely used system recognizes three main types (Blokhuis et al., 2010). First are “resource-based” requirements which typically set out minimum standards for the animal’s environment and other resources such as space, bedding, temperature, air quality, access to food and water, and amenities such as nest-boxes for hens or enrichment devices for pigs. Second are “management-based” requirements which set out what animal managers should and should not do. They include requirements to provide pain management for procedures such as castration, to inspect and feed animals at a certain frequency, to have established protocols for health care and euthanasia, and to refrain from certain procedures such as tail docking. Finally, “animal-based” requirements specify the actual outcomes that should be achieved. These include health-related measures such as maximum allowable rates of mortality, maximum prevalence of lameness and injuries, and minimum body condition scores. Also included are behavioral outcomes, such as low levels of aggression and stereotyped behavior, and the ability to move freely and lie down comfortably. All three types of requirements can be quantitative (involving a numerical measurement), qualitative (typically yes/no), or prohibitions. As examples (summarized in Table 7.1), quantitative requirements might be that no more than 10% of lactating cows should be lame (an animal-based requirement), that space allowance for hens should be 750 cm2 (resource-based), and that calves must be given 4 L of good quality colostrum within 12 hours of birth (management-based). Qualitative requirements include: that all pigs should be able to lie down at the same time (animal-based), that feedlots should have windbreaks (resource-based), and that pain control must be used for castration (management-based). Prohibitions can include: that no animal should show signs of sensibility when slaughter procedures begin (animal-based), that pregnant sows should not be kept in individual stalls (resource-
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Table 7.1 Types of requirements found in animal welfare standards Type of requirement
Quantitative requirements
Qualitative requirements
Prohibitions
Animal-based
# 10% of cows lame
All pigs should be able to lie down at the same time
Resourcebased Managementbased
750 cm2 of floor space per hen Calves must receive 4 L of colostrum in the first 12 h
Feedlots should have windbreaks Pain control must be used for castration
Slaughter must not begin if signs of sensibility are present No pregnant sows in individual stalls No tail docking unless medically necessary
based), and that dairy cattle must not be tail docked unless medically necessary (management-based). An additional option involves “conditional” requirements which, rather than setting targets that must be met, specify actions to be taken under certain circumstances. Such requirements might include that ventilation should be increased if birds are seen panting, that additional feed should be provided below a certain ambient temperature, or that animals should be separated if fighting occurs. Conditional requirements are typically assessed through the presence of Standard Operating Procedures that ensure that managers respond to the challenges identified. The above requirements are typically used to assess or ensure animal welfare, often for regulatory or certification purposes. However, standards can also be used to improve animal welfare rather than merely to assess compliance to specific targets. Main et al. (2014) describe a “continuous improvement” model as a cycle of “plan-do-check-revise.” In this case, the requirement is not to meet certain targets but to have an on-going management cycle that sets objectives and procedures, implements the procedures, monitors the outcome, and then revises the procedures to achieve improved performance.
7.5
The science behind the standards
Scientific research supports animal welfare standards in a variety of ways. For resource-based requirements, research often tries to identify critical levels or thresholds beyond which animal welfare indicators are affected. For example, extensive research shows that mortality rate increases, and rate of lay decreases, if laying hens in conventional cages have less than about 450 cm2 of floor space (Bell et al., 2004), and on that basis some standards now require that caged hens have roughly
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that amount of space. Similarly the requirement (for many species) that ammonia concentration in the air not exceed 25 ppm is based on research showing a higher prevalence of respiratory illness or reduced growth and survival at higher levels (e.g., Miles et al., 2004). Other resource-based requirements have been based on behavioral research. For example, research showed that hens are strongly motivated to gain access to a nest box for laying eggs (Duncan and Kite, 1987; Follensbee et al., 1992) and to a perch for resting (Olsson and Keeling, 2002), and they show signs of frustration if these types of behavior cannot be performed (Duncan, 1970). Hence, many standards now require that hens have access to a nest box and a perch. Similarly, research has shown that providing pigs with chewable material such as straw reduces both stereotyped behavior (Fraser, 1975) and the mutual chewing that is thought to be a precursor to tail biting (Fraser et al., 1991). On this basis, some standards now require that pigs have access to straw or similar materials. As a broader approach to resource-based requirements, science can identify how animal welfare is affected by different production systems. Such research often uses a wide range of welfare indicators to track how welfare is affected by production environments that differ in multiple ways. For example, research has compared welfare outcomes for laying hens kept in conventional cages, enriched cages, cage-free (barn or aviary) systems, and free-range systems where the birds have access to the outdoors. Such work has typically found that each system has its specific welfare challenges and that outcomes differ considerably within the same type of system (Sherwin et al., 2010; Lay et al., 2011). Animal-based requirements typically depend on quite different research approaches. For many animal-based measures—such as the percentage of lame or injured animals—there are no nonzero values where welfare is not affected. In such cases, the research often involves “bench-marking” studies that compare different facilities, often in order to identify achievable targets. For example, in a study of 11 cattle slaughter plants, Grandin (1998) found that 4 plants achieved effective stunning on the first attempt for 95% of the animals, whereas 6 other plants were below 90%. This result led to the proposal that the number of animals that are stunned correctly on the first attempt should be 95% for the plant to be considered acceptable (NAMIF, 2013). Similarly, a study of 121 dairy herds found that the percentage of lame cows ranged from about 5% in the best herd to over 80% in the worst (von Keyserlingk et al., 2012). Such findings have led to the requirement in some standards that lame cows should be kept below 10% of the herd (e.g., NFACC, 2009). For management-based requirements, science has been used in two main ways. One is simply to assess how animal welfare is affected by management practices. For example the tail docking of dairy cows had become a widespread practice in some countries because of the belief that docking improves cleanliness and reduces the somatic cell count in the milk. However, research on the practice has shown no evidence for these benefits (Tucker et al., 2001), whereas docking does appear to reduce the cow’s ability to control flies (Sutherland and Tucker, 2011). Based on
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this work, some animal welfare standards now require that cows not be tail docked except when medically necessary. As a second application to management-based requirements, science has been used to develop and test practices that improve animal welfare. For example, cortisol responses indicate that hot-iron disbudding of dairy calves is accompanied by immediate pain at the time of the procedure together with sustained pain over the hours that follow, and that the pain can be relieved by a combination of local anesthetic and longer acting analgesics (Stafford and Mellor, 2011). On this basis, some animal welfare standards require such pain management to be used for the procedure. Finally, research has been used to test and improve the effectiveness of standards themselves. For example, a study in the United Kingdom compared basic animal welfare outcomes—including lameness, sickness, and ability to move—on dairy farms that were or were not certified as complying with the animal welfare standards of the RSPCA-Assured (formerly Freedom Food) labeling program. In a comparison of over 50 farms, those that were certified under the program scored (on average) better than the others on several measures including prevalence of mastitis, but worse than the others on lameness and some other criteria. The findings were then used to make changes to the program requirements (Main et al., 2003).
7.6
Objectives reflected in standards
The requirements included in animal welfare standards are highly variable and sometimes contradictory. In the case of laying hens, for example, the guidelines of the United Egg Producers in the United States require birds to have a certain space allowance in conventional cages (UEP, 2017), whereas the 1999 European Union directive requires that conventional cages be replaced by larger, enriched cages or alternatives, and some retail and restaurant companies now require that hens be kept in “cage-free” systems. Given that the different standards are all claimed to address animal welfare, the diversity of requirements has great potential to confuse the public. To make sense of such differences, it is useful to see the requirements in animal welfare standards as serving four broad objectives reflecting different beliefs about what is most important in order for animals to have satisfactory welfare (Fraser, 2006). One objective is to maintain the basic health and bodily functioning of animals as reflected by a low incidence of disease and high rates of survival, reproduction, and growth, on the plausible assumption that declines in such variables are among the clearest indicators of impaired animal welfare. Requirements designed to meet this objective include space allowances that prevent crowding-related reductions in survival and productivity, air quality standards that prevent damage to the respiratory system, and requirements for appropriate nutrition, regular inspection, and a veterinary health plan.
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A second objective is focused on the “affective states” of animals, especially to prevent or minimize unpleasant states such as pain, distress, and hunger, and to allow animals to experience positive states such as comfort and contentment. Examples include requirements that local anesthetic be used for certain painful procedures, a ban on “forced molting” of hens by feed withdrawal, and requirements for animals to have certain amounts of dry bedding in their resting areas. A third objective is to provide animals with the opportunity to carry out elements of their natural behavior, especially types of behavior that animals are highly motivated to perform. Examples include requirements for hens to be able to perch, dustbathe, and enter a nest box for laying, requirements for sows on restricted diets to have access to ingestible roughage, and requirements for individually housed calves and sows to be able to walk and turn normally. A final objective is to provide animals with access to natural elements in their environment such as natural light, fresh air, and the outdoors. Examples include requirements for hens to have daily access to the outdoors in free-range systems, requirements for cows to be kept on pasture in the summer months, and requirements for barns to have windows that admit natural daylight. The large discrepancies among standards, as noted earlier, are at least partly due to the fact that they prioritize different animal welfare objectives. For example, standards produced by organizations of conventional animal producers tend to prioritize basic health and functioning whereas those produced by organizations of organic producers tend to emphasize freedom from confinement and access to outdoor environments. Thus, the development of standards commonly involves valuebased decisions about which animal welfare objectives to prioritize, followed by the application of science to set requirements designed to achieve those objectives (Fraser, 2008). Most of the science outlined earlier contributes to the first three objectives. The fourth objective—to give animals more “natural” environments—rests on much less research, and the available science tends to highlight how outdoor and other seemingly natural environments can create welfare trade-offs, for example, by providing more freedom to perform natural behavior but creating challenges to health and comfort through exposure to parasites, aggression, and adverse weather. For instance, hens kept in free-range systems have more freedom of movement but this is sometimes accompanied by a high level of injuries through pecking by other birds (Sherwin et al., 2010) and often by higher rates of mortality (Weeks et al., 2016). Nonetheless, with the growing popularity of labels such as “cage-free” and “freerange,” it will be important for research and development to ensure that these systems function well for the animals, and some promising beginnings have been made. For example, a study that gave dairy cows free access to the outdoors during Canadian summers showed that the animals preferred to be outdoors during the night but indoors during the day especially on warm days, possibly to avoid excessive exposure to the sun (Legrand et al., 2009). Similarly, a study of free-range flocks of chickens found that the birds spent little time outdoors unless there were trees to provide overhead cover (Dawkins et al., 2003), probably because chickens, being
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descended from a jungle-dwelling ancestor, may not be fully at ease in an open pasture. Research of this type should allow nonconfinement systems to be developed in ways that promote the welfare and preferences of the animals themselves.
7.7
Achieving “social validity”
The different beliefs about what is important for animal welfare are deeply embedded in Western culture (Appleby and Sandøe, 2002; Fraser, 2008), and although science helps to inform and clarify the beliefs, science does not have objective means of stating that one is more important than another (Fraser, 1995). Hence, if animal welfare standards and practices are to be widely seen as valid, they need to strike some degree of balance among the different animal welfare objectives by reflecting the values and beliefs of different “stakeholders” (Bradley and MacRae, 2011). Processes designed to achieve social validity take several forms. For example, the current animal welfare standards of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE, 2015) were drafted by a committee of individuals selected on the basis of both technical expertise and geographic distribution. Draft standards were then (1) reviewed by two committees, one specializing in animal welfare and one in technical standards, (2) circulated twice to member countries for comments, (3) revised by the various committees based on the comments, and (4) accepted by voting by the 180 member countries. Various countries have developed their own methods of writing national standards that achieve social validity. In New Zealand, the development of national codes is overseen by the multistakeholder National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee which is required to consult widely, to notify the public when a draft code is ready for comment, and to take public comments into account (Mellor and Bayvel, 2008). In Canada, codes of practice for farm animals are developed under the direction of the multistakeholder National Farm Animal Care Council through a three-step process. First, a committee of scientists reviews research on key issues and creates a peer-reviewed report with recommendations. Next, the code is drafted by a diverse committee that includes producers, veterinarians, regulators, the humane movement, and scientists. Finally, there is a period when the draft code is open for the public to make comments which the drafting committee is required to consider. This process helps to ensure that codes are widely seen as legitimate in that they are science-based, incorporate stakeholder views, and respond to public values (Fraser, 2015). Despite these procedures for developing specific standards, there is also a need to create social consensus on broad policy issues of animal welfare together with other socially important goals (Swanson et al., 2011). This might be done through some form of deliberative process (Sørensen and Fraser, 2010), for example by “citizen panels” that bring together citizens, producers, and others who undertake to study different production systems, weigh the animal welfare tradeoffs, and also balance animal welfare with other goals such as food safety and
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environmental protection (Boogaard et al., 2011). Such deliberation could then provide policy guidance to the more technical committees that draft specific standards.
7.8
Similar environments, different outcomes
Many of the earliest animal welfare standards and regulations emphasized resourcebased requirements such as space allowance, air quality, and environmental design. However, recent research has consistently found that different farms achieve very different animal welfare outcomes even when using the same type of environment or conforming to the same animal welfare standards. For example, in the study of RSPCA Assured farms noted earlier, there was a wide range of performance among the certified farms. The prevalence of swollen hocks, for instance, had a lower quartile of 25% and upper quartile of 70.6% (Main et al., 2003). Bench-marking studies show a similar pattern across a wide range of species and environments. A study of 80 small dairy herds in Austria, all using free-stall housing, found that lameness ranged from 0% of cows on the best farm to 79% on the worst (Rouha-Mu¨lleder et al., 2009). A study of 114 flocks of broiler chickens in the United Kingdom, kept by 10 different companies all using open-barn housing with litter floors, found that mortality rate ranged from 1.4% of birds in the best company to 14% in the worst, and the percentage of birds showing some impairment of gait ranged from 0% to 90% of birds (Dawkins et al., 2004). A study of 39 pig farms in Norway, all using loose housing for sows at farrowing, found that piglet mortality (a significant welfare issue inasmuch as most piglets die from starvation, chilling, or injury) ranged from 5% on the best farm to 24% on the worst (Andersen et al., 2007). Highly variable results such as these underline the limitation of trying to improve animal welfare by setting resource-based standards alone. One result is increasing emphasis on animal-based requirements that focus on the actual animal welfare outcomes, such as a low prevalence of lameness, to complement resourceand management-based requirements (Rushen et al., 2011). For example, in the “Welfare Quality” project—a large, cooperative research program that developed standards for cattle, pigs, and chickens—the scoring systems rely heavily on animal-based measures such as body condition, lameness, lesions, and agonistic behavior (e.g., Welfare Quality, 2009). Such results are also leading to a growing recognition that good animal welfare is a complex outcome of different factors including animal genetics, management, and environment. As a result, simply changing resource-based requirements, for example by requiring that sows farrow in open pens or that hens be housed in open barns, may or may not improve animal welfare depending on the genetic make-up of the animals and the ability of the staff to manage those animals in that environment. Hence, progress in animal welfare often requires not simply setting resourcebased standards but a coordinated process of change involving genetic selection, system design, and animal managers.
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Human factors in animal welfare
As noted earlier, the wide variation in welfare outcomes underlines the crucial role played by human factors in animal welfare, and this realization has led to substantial research in both the natural and the social sciences to explore ways to improve animal welfare by shaping human behavior. Several approaches can be identified. One involves the selection and training of staff (Hemsworth and Coleman, 2010). In decades of research, Paul Hemsworth and coworkers have shown that the way staff handle animals has a significant influence on their welfare as well as productivity. In a study of dairy farms, for example, Hemsworth et al. (2000) monitored the behavior of the staff, fear reactions by the cattle, and the animals’ milk production. Statistical analysis showed that on those farms where the workers often used negative behavior (slaps, pushes, hits, and tail-twists) to move the animals, cows showed greater fear of people in a standardized test, higher levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol in the milk, and lower milk yield. The research also showed a link to the attitude of the people. Based on a staff questionnaire, the research found that workers who described cows with positive terms such as “stimulating,” “entertaining,” and “intelligent” used more pleasant contact, and less negative handling, compared to those who described them with negative terms such as “noisy,” “smelly,” and “ugly.” Hence, selection of staff, and possibly training of staff to appreciate animals, has substantial potential to improve animal welfare (Hemsworth and Coleman, 2010). A second approach is to engage producers in an active process of animal welfare improvement. In a study of dairy farms in the United Kingdom, Whay et al. (2012) considered two possible ways to achieve producer engagement in reducing lameness. For “monitored only” farms, the producers simply received information on the prevalence of lameness during annual visits. For “monitored and supported” farms, the producers also received facilitation in writing their own action plans to reduce lameness. Both groups of farms implemented changes and reduced the percentage of lame cows, suggesting that information alone (“bench-marking”) helped to motivate improvements. However, the “monitored and supported” farms made more changes, and more changes that the researchers judged as beneficial for reducing lameness. A final approach is a shift toward a “professional” model of animal production. In the industrialized countries, the intensification of animal production has been widely regarded by the public as a form of industrialization. The resulting policy response, especially in Europe, has been to treat the sector like a regulated industry by creating requirements designed to make the physical environment safer and healthier, much as governments often regulate factories to protect the safety of workers. In contrast, a “professional” model, seen in occupations such as health care, provides an alternative approach to creating standards. In most professions, practitioners themselves manage a process of self-regulation that ensures competence, good performance, and adherence to the ethical expectations of society. The current move toward assurance programs for animal welfare (plus food safety and
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other goals) could be a significant step toward a professional model in animal production, especially if the programs focus on outcome measures (as an indication of competence) and are managed by producers themselves in a way that inspires public confidence, and if they include robust engagement with the public to ensure that the ethical expectations of society are being met. This approach could arguably be the most effective way to improve both animal welfare and public trust in animal production (Fraser, 2014).
7.10
Conclusions and implications
Recent decades have seen major developments in the application of science to animal welfare, especially through the emergence of animal welfare standards including the global standards of the OIE (2015) combined with a wide range of laws and regulations, codes of practice, and corporate policies. To date, much of this effort has involved resource-based requirements combined with certain prohibitions and requirements related to specific management procedures. There is now a need to move in some different directions. Given the very diverse welfare outcomes seen in similar environments, one need is to transition toward more reliance on animal-based requirements. Science has produced some promising options through ambitious research-and-development projects, notably Welfare Quality (2009) and the subsequent programs Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN, 2015) and AssureWel (2015). Current challenges, as summarized by Main et al. (2012), include selecting appropriate measures, identifying sampling strategies that are feasible yet sufficient to give reliable results, and training assessors to apply criteria in a consistent manner. There is also a need to simplify some of the more time-consuming assessment programs (e.g., Andreasen et al., 2014), perhaps by using statistical analysis to identify a few key variables that have good predictive power for others. Second, if we think of animal welfare as a complex outcome that depends on a match between the genetic make-up of the animals, the production system in which they are kept, and the ability of the people to manage those animals in that system, then improving animal welfare needs to involve coordinated action in all three domains. Simply requiring a change in the production system, for example to a freerange or group-housing system, is likely to give highly variable welfare outcomes. There is a related need to resolve the gap between labeling programs based on animal welfare standards versus those that simply specify a defined production system such as “free-range” or “organic.” The public tend to assume that systems that include access to the outdoors, or that involve minimum confinement of animals, necessarily lead to better animal welfare (e.g., te Velde et al., 2002; Spooner et al., 2014). Hence, retail companies may be tempted to simply stock products identified with definedproduction-system labels as a short-cut to addressing concerns over animal welfare. There is a need to involve the retail and restaurant sectors as integral players in farm animal welfare assurance systems so that their approaches support actions that
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promote good animal welfare outcomes. Moreover, given the emphasis currently being placed on low-confinement systems, there is also a need for research on these systems to make them function well for the health and welfare of the animals. A further transition will be to move beyond programs that merely confirm compliance with a static standard, and toward a “continuous improvement” model that seeks to improve welfare (Main et al., 2014). This will be a challenge because the public has come to expect standards to simply certify compliance with specific requirements in a quasi-regulatory manner. Shifting to a continuous-improvement model will require a degree of education throughout the food chain. There is also a need to ensure the “social validity” of practices and policies designed to safeguard animal welfare. Socially inclusive methods of developing standards have evolved in some countries and organizations, and these need to be applied more broadly. In addition, deliberative processes are needed to provide background guidance on balancing different animal welfare objectives together with other social concerns such as food safety and environmental protection. Finally, in view of the major role of human factors in animal welfare, a great challenge is to engage farmers and workers positively in a process of welfare improvement. This can involve the selection and training of staff, bench-marking performance, and shifting toward a professional model of animal production whereby producers act collectively to ensure competence, performance, and ethical acceptability throughout their sector.
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Boogaard, B.K., Boekhorst, L.J.S., Oosting, S.J., Sørensen, J.T., 2011. Socio-cultural sustainability of pig production: citizen perceptions in the Netherlands and Denmark. Livestock Sci. 140, 189 200. Bradley, A., MacRae, R., 2011. Legitimacy and Canadian farm animal welfare standards development: the case of the National Farm Animal Care Council. J. Agric. Environ. Ethics. 24, 19 47. Dawkins, M.S., Cook, P.A., Whittingham, M.J., Mansell, K.A., Harper, A.E., 2003. What makes free-range broiler chickens range? In situ measurement of habitat preference. Anim. Behav. 66, 151 160. Dawkins, M.S., Donnelly, C.A., Jones, T.A., 2004. Chicken welfare is influenced more by housing conditions than by stocking density. Nature 427, 342 344. Duncan, I.J.H., 1970. Frustration in the fowl. In: Freeman, B.M., Gordon, R.F. (Eds.), Aspects of Poultry Behaviour. British Poultry Science, Edinburgh, pp. 15 31. Duncan, I.J.H., Kite, V.G., 1987. Some investigations into motivation in the domestic fowl. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 18, 387 388. Follensbee, M.E., Duncan, I.J.H., Widowski, T.M., 1992. Quantifying nesting motivation of domestic hens. J. Anim. Sci. 70, 50. Fraser, D., 1975. The effect of straw on the behaviour of sows in tether stalls. Anim. Product. 21, 59 68. Fraser, D., 1995. Science, values and animal welfare: exploring the “inextricable connection”. Anim. Welf. 4, 103 117. Fraser, D., 2006. Animal welfare assurance programs in food production: a framework for assessing the options. Anim. Welf. 15, 93 104. Fraser, D., 2008. Understanding Animal Welfare: The Science in Its Cultural Context. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. Fraser, D., 2014. Could animal production become a profession? Livestock Sci. 169, 155 162. Fraser, D., 2015. Turning science into policy: the case of farm animal welfare in Canada. Anim. Front. 5, 23 27. Fraser, D., Koralesky, K.E., 2017. Assuring and verifying dairy cattle welfare. In: Beede, D. (Ed.), Large Dairy Herd Management e-Book. third ed. American Dairy Science Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 993 1004. Fraser, D., Phillips, P.A., Thompson, B.K., Tennessen, T., 1991. Effects of straw on the behaviour of growing pigs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 30, 307 318. Grandin, T., 1997. The design and construction of facilities for handling cattle. Livestock Product. Sci. 49, 103 119. Grandin, T., 1998. Objective scoring of animal handling and stunning practices at slaughter plants. J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 212, 36 39. Grandin, T., 2003. Transferring results of behavioural research to industry to improve animal welfare on the farm, ranch and the slaughter plant. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 81, 215 228. Hemsworth, P.H., Coleman, G.J., 2010. Human Livestock Interactions: The Stockperson and the Productivity and Welfare of Intensively Farmed Animals. Second ed. CAB International, Wallingford. Hemsworth, P.H., Coleman, G.J., Barnett, J.L., Borg, S., 2000. Relationships between human-animal interactions and productivity of commercial dairy cows. J. Anim. Sci. 78, 2821 2831. Lay, D.C., Fulton, R.M., Hester, P.Y., Karcher, D.M., Kjaer, J.B., Mench, J.A., Mullens, B.A., Newberry, R.C., Nicol, C.J., O’Sullivan, N.P., Porter, R.E., 2011. Hen welfare in different housing systems. Poultry Sci. 90, 278 294.
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Legrand, A.L., von Keyserlingk, M.A.G., Weary, D.M., 2009. Preference and usage of pasture versus free-stall housing by lactating dairy cattle. J. Dairy Sci. 92, 3651 3658. Main, D.C.J., Whay, H.R., Green, L.E., Webster, A.J.F., 2003. Effect of the RSPCA Freedom Food scheme on the welfare of dairy cattle. Vet. Rec. 153, 227 231. Main, D.C.J., Mullan, S., Atkinson, C., Bond, A., Cooper, M., Fraser, A., Browne, W.J., 2012. Welfare outcomes assessment in laying hen farm assurance schemes. Anim. Welf. 21, 389 396. Main, D.C.J., Mullan, S., Atkinson, C., Cooper, M., Wrathall, J.H.M., Blokhuis, H.J., 2014. Best practice framework for animal welfare certification schemes. Trends Food Sci. Technol. 37, 127 136. Mellor, D.J., Bayvel, A.C.D., 2008. New Zealand’s inclusive science-based system for setting animal welfare standards. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 113, 313 329. Mench, J.A., 2008. Farm animal welfare in the U.S.A.: farming practices, research, education, regulation, and assurance programs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 113, 298 312. Miles, D.M., Branton, S.L., Lott, B.D., 2004. Atmospheric ammonia is detrimental to the performance of modern commercial broilers. Poultry Sci. 83, 1650 1654. NAMIF, 2013. Recommended Animal Handling Guidelines & Audit Guide: A Systematic Approach to Animal Welfare. North American Meat Institute Foundation (NAMIF). Available from: http://animalhandling.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/93003 (accessed 15.12.15). NFACC, 2009. Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Dairy Cattle. National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), Lacombe. OIE, 2015. Terrestrial Animal Health Code. World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), Paris. Available from: http://www.oie.int/international-standard-setting/terrestrial-code/ (accessed 29.10.17). Olsson, I.A.S., Keeling, L.J., 2002. The push-door for measuring motivation in hens: laying hens are motivated to perch at night. Anim. Welf. 11, 11 19. Robert, S., Matte, J.J., Farmer, C., Girard, C.L., Martineau, G.P., 1993. High-fibre diets for sows: effects on stereotypies and adjunctive drinking. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 37, 297 309. Rouha-Mu¨lleder, C., Iben, C., Wagner, E., Laaha, G., Troxler, J., Waiblinger, S., 2009. Relative importance of factors influencing the prevalence of lameness in Austrian cubicle loose-housed dairy cows. Prevent. Vet. Med. 92, 123 133. Rushen, J., Butterworth, A., Swanson, J.C., 2011. Farm animal welfare assurance: science and application. J. Anim. Sci. 89, 1219 1228. Sherwin, C.M., Richards, G.J., Nicol, C.J., 2010. A comparison of the welfare of layer hens in four housing systems in the UK. Br. Poultry Sci. 51, 488 499. Sørensen, J.T., Fraser, D., 2010. On-farm welfare assessment for regulatory purposes: issues and possible solutions. Livestock Sci. 131, 1 7. Spooner, J.M., Schuppli, C.A., Fraser, D., 2014. Attitudes of Canadian citizens toward farm animal welfare: a qualitative study. Livestock Sci. 163, 150 158. Stafford, K.J., Mellor, D.J., 2011. Addressing the pain associated with disbudding and dehorning in cattle. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 135, 226 231. Stookey, J.M., Goonewardene, L.A., 1996. A comparison of production traits and welfare implications between horned and polled beef bulls. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 76, 1 5. Sutherland, M.A., Tucker, C.B., 2011. The long and short of it: a review of tail docking in farm animals. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 135, 179 191.
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Swanson, J.C., Lee, Y., Thompson, P.B., Bawden, R., Mench, J.A., 2011. Integration: valuing stakeholder input in setting priorities for socially sustainable egg production. Poultry Sci. 90, 2110 2121. te Velde, H., Aarts, N., van Woerkum, C., 2002. Dealing with ambivalence: farmers’ and consumers’ perceptions of animal welfare in livestock breeding. J. Agric. Environ. Ethics. 15, 203 219. Tucker, C.B., Fraser, D., Weary, D.M., 2001. Tail docking dairy cattle: effects on cow cleanliness and udder health. J. Dairy Sci. 84, 84 87. UEP, 2017. Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg Laying Flocks. United Egg Producers (UEP). Available from: http://www.unitedegg.org/information/pdf/2017UEPAnimal-Welfare-Complete-Guidelines.pdf (accessed 29.10.17). Vieira, A.D., Guesdon, V., de Passille´, A.M., von Keyserlingk, M.A.G., Weary, D.M., 2008. Behavioural indicators of hunger in dairy calves. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 109, 180 189. von Keyserlingk, M.A.G., Barrientos, A., Ito, K., Galo, E., Weary, D.M., 2012. Benchmarking cow comfort on North American freestall dairies: lameness, leg injuries, lying time, facility design, and management for high-producing Holstein dairy cows. J. Dairy Sci. 95, 7399 7408. Weeks, C.A., Lambton, S.L., Williams, A.G., 2016. Implications for welfare, productivity and sustainability of the variation in reported levels of mortality for laying hen flocks kept in different housing systems: a meta-analysis of ten studies. PLoS One 11, e0146394. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146394. Welfare Qualitys, 2009. Welfare Qualitys Assessment Protocol for Cattle. Welfare Qualitys Consortium, Lelystad. Available from: http://edepot.wur.nl/233467 (accessed 16.07.16). Whay, H.R., Barker, Z.E., Leach, K.A., Main, D.C.J., 2012. Promoting farmer engagement and activity in the control of dairy cattle lameness. Vet. J. 193, 617 621.
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David Fraser University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
7.1
Introduction
Animal welfare science developed in response to concerns about how human actions affect the welfare or “quality of life” of animals. The field, therefore, is an applied field where the research is ultimately done so that it can guide how people actually treat and affect animals. However, when scientists conduct animal welfare research, the ways in which it may influence practice are not always obvious. This chapter looks at the bridge between science and practice, including the various policy steps that often lead to the science being applied.
7.2
The structure of animal welfare science
It is useful to think of animal welfare science as occurring at three levels of application. Some fundamental research provides basic understanding of the nature and dimensions of animal welfare. Examples include (1) studies of the cognitive and affective capacity of animals including their capacity for pain, fear, frustration, boredom, and enjoyment; (2) studies of the environments that animals prefer and the types of behavior they are motivated to perform; (3) traditional veterinary studies, especially in pathology and epidemiology, that help to understand risk factors for disease and injury; (4) studies of environmental physiology to identify animals’ needs for warmth, shelter, shade, and ventilation; (5) nutritional studies that identify the nutritional needs of animals; and (6) studies of the evolutionary history of animals as a source of insights into the conditions for which the various species are adapted. Basic studies such as these can help to inform the management of animals, for example by allowing managers to design environments and management practices that are suited to the animals’ adaptations, needs, preferences, and cognitive abilities.
This text draws on several previous publications including Fraser (2006, 2015), and Fraser and Koralesky (2017) which presents some of the same ideas specifically in the context of the dairy sector. I am grateful to the publishers for allowing me to rework some of that material here.
Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-101215-4.00007-9 Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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A second level of research develops ways of assessing animal welfare that can be used to understand the effects of environments, management practices, and other actions. Such “animal welfare indicators” include signs and signals of affective states such as fear, pain, contentment, and pleasure; measures of health and body condition; behavioral abnormalities such as stereotyped or self-injuring behavior; basic health measures such as the prevalence of lameness in a herd or flock; and measures based on stress physiology such as changes in heart rate, in stress-related hormones, and in “downstream” measures such as immune competence. Such assessment methods are often used in further research, for example to identify the welfare consequences of specific housing and handling practices. They are also used directly by people in assessing animal welfare in practical situations. A third level of animal welfare science involves “practice-oriented” research which relates directly to specific practices—including management methods and environments where animals are kept—and which is often operationalized in animal welfare standards. This type of highly applied research, which is especially relevant to this chapter, takes several forms (Fraser and Koralesky, 2017). These are reviewed in more detail later after some background is provided about how science influences practice through animal welfare standards.
7.3
Translating science into practice and policy
In certain cases, animal welfare research has been communicated directly to potential users and they have simply adopted new practices. For example, Grandin (1997) has made numerous innovations in the design and operation of facilities for moving animals at slaughter plants, and these, after being introduced appropriately to users, have now been widely adopted (Grandin, 2003). Similarly, research has shown that traditional feeding levels for dairy calves were so low that they created lasting hunger and retarded the normal growth of the animals (Vieira et al., 2008), and on this basis many dairy farmers have now increased the feed allowance for calves. This direct transfer of science into practice occurs especially in cases where an innovation simplifies animal management, improves productivity, or reduces production cost. For example, the use of pain control during the disbudding of dairy calves is often reported to make the task simpler to perform, and perhaps for this reason the practice became widely adopted in some parts of the world without being mandatory. Similarly, the use of artificial heat for newborn piglets became the norm on pig farms once it became clear that young piglets seek, and survive better at, very warm temperatures. And many other actions that are important for animal welfare—such as maintaining stunning equipment at slaughter plants or keeping ammonia levels low in barns—are often adopted as practices that prevent losses and inefficiency as well as improving animal welfare. In other cases, however, little change occurs even after research has shown a clear benefit for animal welfare. For example, it has long been recognized that
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animal welfare can be improved by providing pregnant sows with high-fiber diets (Robert et al., 1993) and by the use of polled genetics to avoid the need to dehorn cattle (Stookey and Goonewardene, 1996), yet the uptake of these practices has generally been modest or variable. In such cases, animal welfare research has often been put into practice through the intermediate step of being adopted into some type of animal welfare standard or policy in the form of regulations, codes of practice, policies created by food companies, and labeling programs that allow consumers to purchase food produced according to defined standards (Fraser, 2006; Mench, 2008). For simplicity, these will be called “animal welfare standards” in what follows.
7.4
Types of requirements in animal welfare standards
The key elements of animal welfare standards are the actual “requirements” that they contain. These set out what users of the standards are required to do in order to be in compliance. Requirements have been classified in different ways, but one widely used system recognizes three main types (Blokhuis et al., 2010). First are “resource-based” requirements which typically set out minimum standards for the animal’s environment and other resources such as space, bedding, temperature, air quality, access to food and water, and amenities such as nest-boxes for hens or enrichment devices for pigs. Second are “management-based” requirements which set out what animal managers should and should not do. They include requirements to provide pain management for procedures such as castration, to inspect and feed animals at a certain frequency, to have established protocols for health care and euthanasia, and to refrain from certain procedures such as tail docking. Finally, “animal-based” requirements specify the actual outcomes that should be achieved. These include health-related measures such as maximum allowable rates of mortality, maximum prevalence of lameness and injuries, and minimum body condition scores. Also included are behavioral outcomes, such as low levels of aggression and stereotyped behavior, and the ability to move freely and lie down comfortably. All three types of requirements can be quantitative (involving a numerical measurement), qualitative (typically yes/no), or prohibitions. As examples (summarized in Table 7.1), quantitative requirements might be that no more than 10% of lactating cows should be lame (an animal-based requirement), that space allowance for hens should be 750 cm2 (resource-based), and that calves must be given 4 L of good quality colostrum within 12 hours of birth (management-based). Qualitative requirements include: that all pigs should be able to lie down at the same time (animal-based), that feedlots should have windbreaks (resource-based), and that pain control must be used for castration (management-based). Prohibitions can include: that no animal should show signs of sensibility when slaughter procedures begin (animal-based), that pregnant sows should not be kept in individual stalls (resource-
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Table 7.1 Types of requirements found in animal welfare standards Type of requirement
Quantitative requirements
Qualitative requirements
Prohibitions
Animal-based
# 10% of cows lame
All pigs should be able to lie down at the same time
Resourcebased Managementbased
750 cm2 of floor space per hen Calves must receive 4 L of colostrum in the first 12 h
Feedlots should have windbreaks Pain control must be used for castration
Slaughter must not begin if signs of sensibility are present No pregnant sows in individual stalls No tail docking unless medically necessary
based), and that dairy cattle must not be tail docked unless medically necessary (management-based). An additional option involves “conditional” requirements which, rather than setting targets that must be met, specify actions to be taken under certain circumstances. Such requirements might include that ventilation should be increased if birds are seen panting, that additional feed should be provided below a certain ambient temperature, or that animals should be separated if fighting occurs. Conditional requirements are typically assessed through the presence of Standard Operating Procedures that ensure that managers respond to the challenges identified. The above requirements are typically used to assess or ensure animal welfare, often for regulatory or certification purposes. However, standards can also be used to improve animal welfare rather than merely to assess compliance to specific targets. Main et al. (2014) describe a “continuous improvement” model as a cycle of “plan-do-check-revise.” In this case, the requirement is not to meet certain targets but to have an on-going management cycle that sets objectives and procedures, implements the procedures, monitors the outcome, and then revises the procedures to achieve improved performance.
7.5
The science behind the standards
Scientific research supports animal welfare standards in a variety of ways. For resource-based requirements, research often tries to identify critical levels or thresholds beyond which animal welfare indicators are affected. For example, extensive research shows that mortality rate increases, and rate of lay decreases, if laying hens in conventional cages have less than about 450 cm2 of floor space (Bell et al., 2004), and on that basis some standards now require that caged hens have roughly
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that amount of space. Similarly the requirement (for many species) that ammonia concentration in the air not exceed 25 ppm is based on research showing a higher prevalence of respiratory illness or reduced growth and survival at higher levels (e.g., Miles et al., 2004). Other resource-based requirements have been based on behavioral research. For example, research showed that hens are strongly motivated to gain access to a nest box for laying eggs (Duncan and Kite, 1987; Follensbee et al., 1992) and to a perch for resting (Olsson and Keeling, 2002), and they show signs of frustration if these types of behavior cannot be performed (Duncan, 1970). Hence, many standards now require that hens have access to a nest box and a perch. Similarly, research has shown that providing pigs with chewable material such as straw reduces both stereotyped behavior (Fraser, 1975) and the mutual chewing that is thought to be a precursor to tail biting (Fraser et al., 1991). On this basis, some standards now require that pigs have access to straw or similar materials. As a broader approach to resource-based requirements, science can identify how animal welfare is affected by different production systems. Such research often uses a wide range of welfare indicators to track how welfare is affected by production environments that differ in multiple ways. For example, research has compared welfare outcomes for laying hens kept in conventional cages, enriched cages, cage-free (barn or aviary) systems, and free-range systems where the birds have access to the outdoors. Such work has typically found that each system has its specific welfare challenges and that outcomes differ considerably within the same type of system (Sherwin et al., 2010; Lay et al., 2011). Animal-based requirements typically depend on quite different research approaches. For many animal-based measures—such as the percentage of lame or injured animals—there are no nonzero values where welfare is not affected. In such cases, the research often involves “bench-marking” studies that compare different facilities, often in order to identify achievable targets. For example, in a study of 11 cattle slaughter plants, Grandin (1998) found that 4 plants achieved effective stunning on the first attempt for 95% of the animals, whereas 6 other plants were below 90%. This result led to the proposal that the number of animals that are stunned correctly on the first attempt should be 95% for the plant to be considered acceptable (NAMIF, 2013). Similarly, a study of 121 dairy herds found that the percentage of lame cows ranged from about 5% in the best herd to over 80% in the worst (von Keyserlingk et al., 2012). Such findings have led to the requirement in some standards that lame cows should be kept below 10% of the herd (e.g., NFACC, 2009). For management-based requirements, science has been used in two main ways. One is simply to assess how animal welfare is affected by management practices. For example the tail docking of dairy cows had become a widespread practice in some countries because of the belief that docking improves cleanliness and reduces the somatic cell count in the milk. However, research on the practice has shown no evidence for these benefits (Tucker et al., 2001), whereas docking does appear to reduce the cow’s ability to control flies (Sutherland and Tucker, 2011). Based on
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this work, some animal welfare standards now require that cows not be tail docked except when medically necessary. As a second application to management-based requirements, science has been used to develop and test practices that improve animal welfare. For example, cortisol responses indicate that hot-iron disbudding of dairy calves is accompanied by immediate pain at the time of the procedure together with sustained pain over the hours that follow, and that the pain can be relieved by a combination of local anesthetic and longer acting analgesics (Stafford and Mellor, 2011). On this basis, some animal welfare standards require such pain management to be used for the procedure. Finally, research has been used to test and improve the effectiveness of standards themselves. For example, a study in the United Kingdom compared basic animal welfare outcomes—including lameness, sickness, and ability to move—on dairy farms that were or were not certified as complying with the animal welfare standards of the RSPCA-Assured (formerly Freedom Food) labeling program. In a comparison of over 50 farms, those that were certified under the program scored (on average) better than the others on several measures including prevalence of mastitis, but worse than the others on lameness and some other criteria. The findings were then used to make changes to the program requirements (Main et al., 2003).
7.6
Objectives reflected in standards
The requirements included in animal welfare standards are highly variable and sometimes contradictory. In the case of laying hens, for example, the guidelines of the United Egg Producers in the United States require birds to have a certain space allowance in conventional cages (UEP, 2017), whereas the 1999 European Union directive requires that conventional cages be replaced by larger, enriched cages or alternatives, and some retail and restaurant companies now require that hens be kept in “cage-free” systems. Given that the different standards are all claimed to address animal welfare, the diversity of requirements has great potential to confuse the public. To make sense of such differences, it is useful to see the requirements in animal welfare standards as serving four broad objectives reflecting different beliefs about what is most important in order for animals to have satisfactory welfare (Fraser, 2006). One objective is to maintain the basic health and bodily functioning of animals as reflected by a low incidence of disease and high rates of survival, reproduction, and growth, on the plausible assumption that declines in such variables are among the clearest indicators of impaired animal welfare. Requirements designed to meet this objective include space allowances that prevent crowding-related reductions in survival and productivity, air quality standards that prevent damage to the respiratory system, and requirements for appropriate nutrition, regular inspection, and a veterinary health plan.
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A second objective is focused on the “affective states” of animals, especially to prevent or minimize unpleasant states such as pain, distress, and hunger, and to allow animals to experience positive states such as comfort and contentment. Examples include requirements that local anesthetic be used for certain painful procedures, a ban on “forced molting” of hens by feed withdrawal, and requirements for animals to have certain amounts of dry bedding in their resting areas. A third objective is to provide animals with the opportunity to carry out elements of their natural behavior, especially types of behavior that animals are highly motivated to perform. Examples include requirements for hens to be able to perch, dustbathe, and enter a nest box for laying, requirements for sows on restricted diets to have access to ingestible roughage, and requirements for individually housed calves and sows to be able to walk and turn normally. A final objective is to provide animals with access to natural elements in their environment such as natural light, fresh air, and the outdoors. Examples include requirements for hens to have daily access to the outdoors in free-range systems, requirements for cows to be kept on pasture in the summer months, and requirements for barns to have windows that admit natural daylight. The large discrepancies among standards, as noted earlier, are at least partly due to the fact that they prioritize different animal welfare objectives. For example, standards produced by organizations of conventional animal producers tend to prioritize basic health and functioning whereas those produced by organizations of organic producers tend to emphasize freedom from confinement and access to outdoor environments. Thus, the development of standards commonly involves valuebased decisions about which animal welfare objectives to prioritize, followed by the application of science to set requirements designed to achieve those objectives (Fraser, 2008). Most of the science outlined earlier contributes to the first three objectives. The fourth objective—to give animals more “natural” environments—rests on much less research, and the available science tends to highlight how outdoor and other seemingly natural environments can create welfare trade-offs, for example, by providing more freedom to perform natural behavior but creating challenges to health and comfort through exposure to parasites, aggression, and adverse weather. For instance, hens kept in free-range systems have more freedom of movement but this is sometimes accompanied by a high level of injuries through pecking by other birds (Sherwin et al., 2010) and often by higher rates of mortality (Weeks et al., 2016). Nonetheless, with the growing popularity of labels such as “cage-free” and “freerange,” it will be important for research and development to ensure that these systems function well for the animals, and some promising beginnings have been made. For example, a study that gave dairy cows free access to the outdoors during Canadian summers showed that the animals preferred to be outdoors during the night but indoors during the day especially on warm days, possibly to avoid excessive exposure to the sun (Legrand et al., 2009). Similarly, a study of free-range flocks of chickens found that the birds spent little time outdoors unless there were trees to provide overhead cover (Dawkins et al., 2003), probably because chickens, being
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descended from a jungle-dwelling ancestor, may not be fully at ease in an open pasture. Research of this type should allow nonconfinement systems to be developed in ways that promote the welfare and preferences of the animals themselves.
7.7
Achieving “social validity”
The different beliefs about what is important for animal welfare are deeply embedded in Western culture (Appleby and Sandøe, 2002; Fraser, 2008), and although science helps to inform and clarify the beliefs, science does not have objective means of stating that one is more important than another (Fraser, 1995). Hence, if animal welfare standards and practices are to be widely seen as valid, they need to strike some degree of balance among the different animal welfare objectives by reflecting the values and beliefs of different “stakeholders” (Bradley and MacRae, 2011). Processes designed to achieve social validity take several forms. For example, the current animal welfare standards of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE, 2015) were drafted by a committee of individuals selected on the basis of both technical expertise and geographic distribution. Draft standards were then (1) reviewed by two committees, one specializing in animal welfare and one in technical standards, (2) circulated twice to member countries for comments, (3) revised by the various committees based on the comments, and (4) accepted by voting by the 180 member countries. Various countries have developed their own methods of writing national standards that achieve social validity. In New Zealand, the development of national codes is overseen by the multistakeholder National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee which is required to consult widely, to notify the public when a draft code is ready for comment, and to take public comments into account (Mellor and Bayvel, 2008). In Canada, codes of practice for farm animals are developed under the direction of the multistakeholder National Farm Animal Care Council through a three-step process. First, a committee of scientists reviews research on key issues and creates a peer-reviewed report with recommendations. Next, the code is drafted by a diverse committee that includes producers, veterinarians, regulators, the humane movement, and scientists. Finally, there is a period when the draft code is open for the public to make comments which the drafting committee is required to consider. This process helps to ensure that codes are widely seen as legitimate in that they are science-based, incorporate stakeholder views, and respond to public values (Fraser, 2015). Despite these procedures for developing specific standards, there is also a need to create social consensus on broad policy issues of animal welfare together with other socially important goals (Swanson et al., 2011). This might be done through some form of deliberative process (Sørensen and Fraser, 2010), for example by “citizen panels” that bring together citizens, producers, and others who undertake to study different production systems, weigh the animal welfare tradeoffs, and also balance animal welfare with other goals such as food safety and
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environmental protection (Boogaard et al., 2011). Such deliberation could then provide policy guidance to the more technical committees that draft specific standards.
7.8
Similar environments, different outcomes
Many of the earliest animal welfare standards and regulations emphasized resourcebased requirements such as space allowance, air quality, and environmental design. However, recent research has consistently found that different farms achieve very different animal welfare outcomes even when using the same type of environment or conforming to the same animal welfare standards. For example, in the study of RSPCA Assured farms noted earlier, there was a wide range of performance among the certified farms. The prevalence of swollen hocks, for instance, had a lower quartile of 25% and upper quartile of 70.6% (Main et al., 2003). Bench-marking studies show a similar pattern across a wide range of species and environments. A study of 80 small dairy herds in Austria, all using free-stall housing, found that lameness ranged from 0% of cows on the best farm to 79% on the worst (Rouha-Mu¨lleder et al., 2009). A study of 114 flocks of broiler chickens in the United Kingdom, kept by 10 different companies all using open-barn housing with litter floors, found that mortality rate ranged from 1.4% of birds in the best company to 14% in the worst, and the percentage of birds showing some impairment of gait ranged from 0% to 90% of birds (Dawkins et al., 2004). A study of 39 pig farms in Norway, all using loose housing for sows at farrowing, found that piglet mortality (a significant welfare issue inasmuch as most piglets die from starvation, chilling, or injury) ranged from 5% on the best farm to 24% on the worst (Andersen et al., 2007). Highly variable results such as these underline the limitation of trying to improve animal welfare by setting resource-based standards alone. One result is increasing emphasis on animal-based requirements that focus on the actual animal welfare outcomes, such as a low prevalence of lameness, to complement resourceand management-based requirements (Rushen et al., 2011). For example, in the “Welfare Quality” project—a large, cooperative research program that developed standards for cattle, pigs, and chickens—the scoring systems rely heavily on animal-based measures such as body condition, lameness, lesions, and agonistic behavior (e.g., Welfare Quality, 2009). Such results are also leading to a growing recognition that good animal welfare is a complex outcome of different factors including animal genetics, management, and environment. As a result, simply changing resource-based requirements, for example by requiring that sows farrow in open pens or that hens be housed in open barns, may or may not improve animal welfare depending on the genetic make-up of the animals and the ability of the staff to manage those animals in that environment. Hence, progress in animal welfare often requires not simply setting resourcebased standards but a coordinated process of change involving genetic selection, system design, and animal managers.
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Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare
Human factors in animal welfare
As noted earlier, the wide variation in welfare outcomes underlines the crucial role played by human factors in animal welfare, and this realization has led to substantial research in both the natural and the social sciences to explore ways to improve animal welfare by shaping human behavior. Several approaches can be identified. One involves the selection and training of staff (Hemsworth and Coleman, 2010). In decades of research, Paul Hemsworth and coworkers have shown that the way staff handle animals has a significant influence on their welfare as well as productivity. In a study of dairy farms, for example, Hemsworth et al. (2000) monitored the behavior of the staff, fear reactions by the cattle, and the animals’ milk production. Statistical analysis showed that on those farms where the workers often used negative behavior (slaps, pushes, hits, and tail-twists) to move the animals, cows showed greater fear of people in a standardized test, higher levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol in the milk, and lower milk yield. The research also showed a link to the attitude of the people. Based on a staff questionnaire, the research found that workers who described cows with positive terms such as “stimulating,” “entertaining,” and “intelligent” used more pleasant contact, and less negative handling, compared to those who described them with negative terms such as “noisy,” “smelly,” and “ugly.” Hence, selection of staff, and possibly training of staff to appreciate animals, has substantial potential to improve animal welfare (Hemsworth and Coleman, 2010). A second approach is to engage producers in an active process of animal welfare improvement. In a study of dairy farms in the United Kingdom, Whay et al. (2012) considered two possible ways to achieve producer engagement in reducing lameness. For “monitored only” farms, the producers simply received information on the prevalence of lameness during annual visits. For “monitored and supported” farms, the producers also received facilitation in writing their own action plans to reduce lameness. Both groups of farms implemented changes and reduced the percentage of lame cows, suggesting that information alone (“bench-marking”) helped to motivate improvements. However, the “monitored and supported” farms made more changes, and more changes that the researchers judged as beneficial for reducing lameness. A final approach is a shift toward a “professional” model of animal production. In the industrialized countries, the intensification of animal production has been widely regarded by the public as a form of industrialization. The resulting policy response, especially in Europe, has been to treat the sector like a regulated industry by creating requirements designed to make the physical environment safer and healthier, much as governments often regulate factories to protect the safety of workers. In contrast, a “professional” model, seen in occupations such as health care, provides an alternative approach to creating standards. In most professions, practitioners themselves manage a process of self-regulation that ensures competence, good performance, and adherence to the ethical expectations of society. The current move toward assurance programs for animal welfare (plus food safety and
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other goals) could be a significant step toward a professional model in animal production, especially if the programs focus on outcome measures (as an indication of competence) and are managed by producers themselves in a way that inspires public confidence, and if they include robust engagement with the public to ensure that the ethical expectations of society are being met. This approach could arguably be the most effective way to improve both animal welfare and public trust in animal production (Fraser, 2014).
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Conclusions and implications
Recent decades have seen major developments in the application of science to animal welfare, especially through the emergence of animal welfare standards including the global standards of the OIE (2015) combined with a wide range of laws and regulations, codes of practice, and corporate policies. To date, much of this effort has involved resource-based requirements combined with certain prohibitions and requirements related to specific management procedures. There is now a need to move in some different directions. Given the very diverse welfare outcomes seen in similar environments, one need is to transition toward more reliance on animal-based requirements. Science has produced some promising options through ambitious research-and-development projects, notably Welfare Quality (2009) and the subsequent programs Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN, 2015) and AssureWel (2015). Current challenges, as summarized by Main et al. (2012), include selecting appropriate measures, identifying sampling strategies that are feasible yet sufficient to give reliable results, and training assessors to apply criteria in a consistent manner. There is also a need to simplify some of the more time-consuming assessment programs (e.g., Andreasen et al., 2014), perhaps by using statistical analysis to identify a few key variables that have good predictive power for others. Second, if we think of animal welfare as a complex outcome that depends on a match between the genetic make-up of the animals, the production system in which they are kept, and the ability of the people to manage those animals in that system, then improving animal welfare needs to involve coordinated action in all three domains. Simply requiring a change in the production system, for example to a freerange or group-housing system, is likely to give highly variable welfare outcomes. There is a related need to resolve the gap between labeling programs based on animal welfare standards versus those that simply specify a defined production system such as “free-range” or “organic.” The public tend to assume that systems that include access to the outdoors, or that involve minimum confinement of animals, necessarily lead to better animal welfare (e.g., te Velde et al., 2002; Spooner et al., 2014). Hence, retail companies may be tempted to simply stock products identified with definedproduction-system labels as a short-cut to addressing concerns over animal welfare. There is a need to involve the retail and restaurant sectors as integral players in farm animal welfare assurance systems so that their approaches support actions that
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promote good animal welfare outcomes. Moreover, given the emphasis currently being placed on low-confinement systems, there is also a need for research on these systems to make them function well for the health and welfare of the animals. A further transition will be to move beyond programs that merely confirm compliance with a static standard, and toward a “continuous improvement” model that seeks to improve welfare (Main et al., 2014). This will be a challenge because the public has come to expect standards to simply certify compliance with specific requirements in a quasi-regulatory manner. Shifting to a continuous-improvement model will require a degree of education throughout the food chain. There is also a need to ensure the “social validity” of practices and policies designed to safeguard animal welfare. Socially inclusive methods of developing standards have evolved in some countries and organizations, and these need to be applied more broadly. In addition, deliberative processes are needed to provide background guidance on balancing different animal welfare objectives together with other social concerns such as food safety and environmental protection. Finally, in view of the major role of human factors in animal welfare, a great challenge is to engage farmers and workers positively in a process of welfare improvement. This can involve the selection and training of staff, bench-marking performance, and shifting toward a professional model of animal production whereby producers act collectively to ensure competence, performance, and ethical acceptability throughout their sector.
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