This systematic review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of various physical environmental enrichment items such as brushes, ropes, teats, chains, balls, cowhides/blocks, at improving the welfare of indoor-housed calves, heifers, and cattle. This review of 33 peer-reviewed papers and one industry report evaluated different welfare-related outcomes following physical environmental enrichment, including feed intake, lying time, play and exploratory behaviour, aggression, stereotypic behaviour and cross-sucking behaviour. The results of the meta-analysis revealed that calves and heifers enrolled in experimental studies using enrichment items had significantly improved growth rates, and increased locomotor play, but the overall reduction in cross-sucking behaviour was small and non-significant. The effect of enrichment on feed intake, aggression/stereotypic behaviour, play behaviour, cleanliness score contrasted between studies, with some reporting improvements while others showed no effect of environmental enrichment in these parameters. The risk of bias assessment revealed limitations in researcher blinding, sequence generation, and allocation concealment across the literature assessing the effectiveness of environmental enrichment on animal welfare. Overall, this review underscores the significant positive impact of physical enrichment on the welfare and behaviour of indoor-housed cattle, while highlighting the need for further research to optimise enrichment strategies across different cattle age groups and housing conditions.

Commercial cattle slaughter operations have shown an increasing trend towards automation, with the aim being to improve animal welfare, product quality and efficiency. Several cattle slaughter plants have introduced mechanical rump pushers (RP) prior to the entrance of the stun box to reduce human-animal interaction and facilitate a smoother transition from the raceway to stun box. Presently, there are no data regarding the use of RPs in commercial slaughter environments operating at 40 cattle per hour. Therefore, this study observed normal operations at a UK slaughter plant, which has an RP installed, and assessed the level of coercion required to enter the RP, the use of the RP, cattle behaviour inside the RP and carcase bruising. The RP was used on 267 of the 815 cattle observed (32.8%) and was more likely to be used on dairy cattle and those who received a higher coercion score when entering the RP. Overall, 60 cattle (7.4%) required the highest coercion score and four (0.49%) required the use of the electric goad. Inside the RP, eleven animals slipped (1.8%) and ten vocalised (1.6%) although no incidences were directly associated with RP use. However, increased time restrained in the RP was significantly associated with more gate slams into the RP entrance gate. The use of the RP was not significantly associated with carcase bruising. These results are encouraging, and although it cannot be concluded that the presence of an RP improves cattle welfare at slaughter, use of automation within cattle slaughter facilities warrants further investigation.

Successive negative contrast (SNC) is a decrease in response when animals unexpectedly face reward devaluation to levels below those of animals always receiving low-value rewards. SNC appears to be influenced by background affective states and has thus been proposed as a tool for assessing animal welfare. While reported in several mammal species, findings of SNC in dogs (Canis lups familiaris) have been inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate the suitability of SNC to assess affective states in dogs. For this purpose, it is important that the test can be consistently used across populations, and we therefore tested the reaction to reward devaluation in laboratory, shelter, and owned dogs (n = 12 per population). After assessing individual food preferences, reward devaluation tasks were performed where animals first solved a puzzle toy for high-value rewards (pre-shift), then for low-value rewards (post-shift), and again for high-value rewards (re-shift). Results showed that shelter dogs and three owned dogs removed fewer cones of the puzzle, ate fewer rewards, and took longer to complete the task (remove all cones) in the post-shift phase compared to pre- and re-shift phases. Conversely, no reduction in number of cones removed nor in number of rewards eaten was found for laboratory and the remaining nine owned dogs. The behaviour of the first group (response reduction following reward devaluation) is consistent with SNC, whereas the behaviour of the second (no change in behaviour after reward devaluation) is not. The inconsistency of SNC within and across dog populations raises questions regarding its suitability for evaluating dog welfare.

Effective, continuing professional development opportunities provide veterinarians with the necessary skills to uphold animal welfare standards. In India, surgical neutering is integral in successfully managing the large, free-roaming dog population; the delivery of skills-based, training opportunities which result in long-term behavioural changes remains challenging. Indian veterinarians attending a 12-day, practically focused, training programme on canine surgical neutering, completed a questionnaire prior to the commencement of training and 10–12 months afterwards. Questions explored the programme’s impact on their attitudes, working practices, and retained knowledge. A total of 207 participants completed both questionnaires. Ten to 12 months after attendance, most participants reported increased confidence undertaking common surgical and clinical tasks; they felt both motivated and able to use their newly acquired knowledge and skills in their workplace, with some peer-to-peer skills transfer opportunities. Many reported high levels of employer engagement resulting in improvements in the workplace, including equipment investment. Evidence for sustained improvements in working practices were noted in four key areas: surgical practices, use of perioperative analgesia, use of perioperative antibiotics, and post-operative wound management. Average knowledge scores in four areas (surgical skills, peri-operative analgesia, post-operative antibiotics and post-operative care) increased significantly 10–12 months after the training programme as compared to before, after accounting for other participants’ characteristics. These findings provide evidence for sustained improvements in workplace practices and patient care after attending a skills-based training opportunity, with a concomitant positive impact on standards of animal welfare. Furthermore, it may inform the development and implementation of future, educational, outcomes-focused training initiatives.

An estimated 0.9 to 2.5 trillion individual wild finfish, destined for human or animal consumption, are captured globally each year by commercial fisheries. The majority of wild-caught fish die either from asphyxiation or evisceration; slaughter methods considered inhumane. Humane stunning or stun/killing may improve the welfare of wild-caught fish at the time of slaughter by rendering fish immediately insensible to pain, stress and suffering. Reducing fish stress during slaughter may also improve product quality. This study systematically mapped and narratively evaluated scientific research regarding humane stunning or stun/killing of wild finfish caught for food and feed on a commercial scale. Multiple knowledge gaps were identified: Key humane stunning parameters have only been scientifically tested, in terms of fish welfare and/or flesh quality, for a minority of wild-caught fish species and stunning methods. More species-specific protocols and use of brain activity measurements to accurately assess state of consciousness on application of the stunning method are required. More scientific testing of stunning methods in commercial wild-capture settings is needed to validate findings of controlled laboratory studies and ensure the methods are practical in fisheries. Research is needed to better understand the potential economic benefits of humane stunning for fishermen. From a donor perspective this review highlights the need to support more primary research into the feasibility and implementation of humane stunning or stun/killing in wild-capture fisheries.

The Five Domains model (FDM) is a widely accepted framework for developing welfare assessment tools across various contexts, including wild animals under human care. However, only two protocols have been developed for captive cetaceans. This study aimed to create a welfare assessment protocol based on the FDM for captive Yangtze finless porpoises (YFPs; Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis). Indicators relevant to YFPs’ welfare were selected via a literature review, and validated through two consecutive questionnaire surveys, four discussions with a panel of three experts, and a blind review conducted by three additional cetacean welfare experts. This process resulted in the validation of 46 welfare indicators, which were used to develop the Yangtze Finless Porpoise-Welfare Assessment Protocol (YFP-WAP) which, in its final version, contains 150 indicators. Moreover, intensity levels (the degree of impact of each indicator on the porpoises’ welfare), valence (whether the indicator contributed positively or negatively to the porpoises’ welfare state), and mental states associated with each indicator were also assigned by the panels of experts. Additionally, a confidence score was assigned to each indicator’s intensity level, valence, and mental state that reflected experts’ level of uncertainty regarding the indicator impact on the YFPs’ welfare. This rigorous validation process provided transparency, helped ensure minimal bias, and reduced the likelihood of incorrect indicator elimination due to expert subjectivity. By integrating expert knowledge, the YFP-WAP provides a comprehensive approach to evaluating both positive and negative welfare states, supporting the ongoing care and management of YFPs in captivity.

To qualify and quantify animal welfare, novel assessment tools have been and are being developed, while existing assessment tools are being modified so that they can be applied to multiple species living under different housing and management conditions. The results of such assessments should be reliable, consistent and reproducible. We review the steps that should ideally be taken to develop, validate and apply animal welfare assessment tools. The first step should be to find a definition of animal welfare that the various stakeholders can agree upon. The second step should be to formulate and agree upon a framework for the evaluation of animal welfare. Both theoretical/conceptual frameworks, which provide a structure for research and suggest which facets are considered important, and ethical frameworks, which explicate the underlying moral position, should be considered. Finally, animal welfare assessment tools should be developed and validated based on both the adopted welfare definition and the welfare evaluation framework(s). However, this three-step approach has not always been followed in the development of welfare assessment tools currently in use. We expect that transparency and clarity regarding the underlying definitions and frameworks will increase the likelihood that the resulting welfare assessment tools will give similar weight to the aspects considered relevant to animal welfare, as it helps to specify the aspects that are considered to be key elements of animal welfare. This approach should lead to convergent assessment results and higher correlation of welfare indicators between assessment tools.

Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) have been consumed and revered in South American countries since precolonial times and continue to serve as both an important protein source and an economic driver for underserved and remote communities in the region. However, currently, there is limited peer-reviewed research on the welfare status of these animals in meat production systems. This scoping review seeks to provide an overview of guinea pig meat production in the region, highlighting potential welfare challenges and exploring opportunities to advance animal welfare practices within these systems.

It is widely accepted that we ought to avoid taking excessive risks of causing gratuitous suffering. The practical implications of this truism, however, depend on how we understand what counts as an excessive risk. Precautionary frameworks help us decide when a risk exceeds the threshold for action, with the recent Birch et al. (2021) framework for assessing invertebrate sentience being one such example. The Birch et al. framework uses four neurobiological and four behavioural criteria to provide an evidence-based standard that can be used in determining when precautionary action to promote invertebrate welfare may be warranted. Our aim in this discussion paper is to provide a new motivation for the threshold approach that the Birch et al. framework represents while simultaneously identifying some possible revisions to the framework that can reduce false positives without abandoning the framework’s precautionary objectives.

Pain monitoring and diagnosis are crucial in seeking to improve animal welfare. This pilot study aimed to investigate the impact of long hours observation on pain assessment and the intra-observer reliability in piglets using video recording. A total of ten piglets, five from the control group (sham castration; pain-free) and five from the pain group (surgical castration; pain-state), were video-recorded immediately post-castration. The videos were randomised and assessed by an experienced observer using the Unesp-Botucatu Pig Composite Acute Pain Scale (UPAPS). The same ten videos were watched at three different times (trial initiation, half-way point, trial termination) with a four-week interval between them. During the four-week interval periods, the observer watched an additional 360 videos from another study to simulate long observation periods. For the pain group, no differences were found in the post hoc test for the UPAPS total score, and most of the UPAPS items. In contrast, for the control group, the UPAPS total score was higher at the half-way time-point, and no differences were found between UPAPS items. The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) inferred ‘very good’ intra-observer reliability for UPAPS total score in all time-points of assessment for both groups. Video-recorded pain assessment is a reliable method to assess pain in piglets given that observation duration for pain assessment had only minimal impact on the UPAPS total score, and no differences were found among most of the items. From an animal welfare standpoint, video-recorded pain assessment is a non-invasive method, that can be an additional asset for pain research.

Pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) and most other farmed species are social animals for whom social isolation is known to cause stress. However, their social nature is commonly ignored in behavioural and cognitive tasks, on which they are trained and tested individually, which may impact their welfare and the validity of test results. We chose the Judgement Bias Task (JBT), a promising proxy measure of affective states, to compare training duration, task performance and behaviour of pigs trained and tested in social isolation (ISO; n = 12) with pigs trained and tested with physical and visual contact to social companions through an opening covered with wire mesh (SOC; n = 12). Eleven SOC pigs and eight ISO pigs learned the task, but SOC and ISO pigs did not differ in training duration or task performance when tested. However, ISO pigs showed a higher frequency of all behavioural measures indicative of stress, i.e. high-pitched vocalisation, freezing, exit-approaching behaviour, heavy escape attempts, defaecation and urination compared to SOC pigs. Future research should replicate our study, additionally in combination with other treatments like different housing conditions, to investigate potential interacting effects on learning and task performance. Several open questions remain, but the unambiguous behavioural differences we found strongly advocate for more research to decrease the stress and thus improve the welfare of pigs and other social animals used in behavioural and cognitive tasks.

There is increasing recognition that the welfare needs of cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans are important. Current commercial practices involving these animals include a range of potential threats to their welfare, such as conditions of farming, capture, transport, and slaughter. This article draws from and updates our 2021 review for the UK Government, recommending a range of relatively simple and impactful changes that could benefit welfare while highlighting important research gaps that should be prioritised to facilitate the drafting of guidelines for best-practice.

The governance of farm animal welfare is led, in certain countries and sectors, by industry organisations. The aim of this study was to analyse the legitimacy of industry-led farm animal welfare governance focusing on two examples: the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Dairy Cattle and the Animal Care module of the proAction programme in Canada, and the Animal Care module of the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) programme in the United States (US). Both are dairy cattle welfare governance programmes led by industry actors who create the standards and audit farms for compliance. We described the normative legitimacy of these systems, based on an input, throughput, and output framework, by performing a document analysis on publicly available information from these organisations’ websites and found that the legitimacy of both systems was enhanced by their commitment to science, the presence of accountability systems to enforce standards, and wide participation by dairy farms. The Canadian system featured more balanced representation, and their standard development process uses a consensus-based model, which bolsters legitimacy compared to the US system. However, the US system was more transparent regarding audit outcomes than the Canadian system. Both systems face challenges to their legitimacy due to heavy industry representation and limited transparency as to how public feedback is addressed in the standards. These Canadian and US dairy industry standards illustrate strengths and weakness of industry-led farm animal welfare governance.

Contrafreeloading (CFL) refers to animals’ tendency to prefer obtaining food through effort rather than accessing food that is freely available. Researchers have proposed various hypotheses to explain this intriguing phenomenon, but few studies have provided a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing this behaviour. In this study, we observed the choice of alternative food containers in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) to investigate their CFL tendencies and the effects of pre-training, food deprivation, and effort required on the CFL tasks. The results showed that budgerigars did not exhibit significant difference in their first choices or the time interacting with less challenging versus more challenging food containers. Moreover, when evaluating each budgerigar’s CFL level, only half of them were identified as strong contrafreeloaders. Thus, we suggest that budgerigars exhibit an intermediate CFL level that lies somewhere between a strong tendency and the absence of such behaviour. Furthermore, we also found that food-deprived budgerigars tended to select less challenging food containers, and pre-trained budgerigars were more likely to choose highly challenging food containers than moderately challenging food containers, which means that the requirement of only a reasonable effort (access to food from moderately challenging food containers in this study) and the experience of pre-training act to enhance their CFL levels, whereas the requirement of greater effort and the experience of food deprivation act to decrease their CFL levels. Studying animal CFL can help understand why animals choose to expend effort to obtain food rather than accessing it for free, and it also has implications for setting feeding environments to enhance the animal welfare of captive and domesticated animals.