Sequential sampling: a novel method in farm animal welfare assessment

Sequential sampling: a novel method in farm animal welfare assessment.

Lameness in dairy cows is an important welfare issue. As part of a welfare assessment, herd level lameness prevalence can be estimated from scoring a sample of animals, where higher levels of accuracy are associated with larger sample sizes. As the financial cost is related to the number of cows sampled, smaller samples are preferred. Sequential sampling schemes have been used for informing dec...

Modelling Farm Animal Welfare

The use of models in the life sciences has greatly expanded in scope and advanced in technique in recent decades. However, the range, type and complexity of models used in farm animal welfare is comparatively poor, despite the great scope for use of modeling in this field of research. In this paper, we review the different modeling approaches used in farm animal welfare science to date, discuss...

A New Method for On-Farm Euthanasia with Animal Welfare Considerations

Objective: Euthanasia of animals is a highly stressful situation for veterinarians and may be source of ethical dilemmas; also, it is very difficult to decide “which technique is more appropriate for the given situation”? The aim of this study was to describe a new humane method for on-farm euthanasia. Design: Pilot clinical trial. Animals: thirteen animals including three horses, six sheep ...

Economics and Farm Animal Welfare

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...