ANIMAL-BASED MEASURES: A STEP TOWARDS RIGHTS FOR FARM ANIMALS?

Science-based assessment of animal welfare: farm animals.

Animal welfare is to do with the feelings experienced by animals: the absence of strong negative feelings, usually called suffering, and (probably) the presence of positive feelings, usually called pleasure. In any assessment of welfare, it is these feelings that should be assessed. Because feelings are subjective, they cannot be investigated directly. However, there are indirect methods by whi...

Molecular Markers for Fertility in Farm Animals

A genetic marker is a gene or DNA sequence with known localization on a chromosome. It can be de-scribed as a variation that can be measured or detected by a suitable method, and can be used subsequently to detect the presence of a specific genotype. Such variations occurring at chromosomal or DNA level can serve as genetic markers. The progress in development of molecular markers suggests thei...

Minerals for Farm Animals

Automation Systems for Farm Animals: Potential Impacts on the Human Animal Relationship and on Animal Welfare

This article discusses ethical issues raised by automation systems in animal farming. These systems automatically collect various kinds of information about an animal and allow the farmer to monitor it remotely. It is argued that the relationship between the farmer and the individual animal is becoming increasingly distant and impoverished. Although this may protect the animal from some negativ...

Opposing views on animal experimentation: do animals have rights?

Animals have moral standing; that is, they have properties (including the ability to feel pain) that qualify them for the protections of morality. It follows from this that humans have moral obligations toward animals, and because rights are logically correlative to obligations, animals have rights.