Completely revised, updated and with four new chapters on sustainability, new technologies, precision agriculture and the future of animal welfare. This book is edited by an outstanding world expert on animal welfare, it emphasizes throughout the importance of measuring conditions that compromise welfare, such as lameness, heat stress, body condition, and bruises during transport.The book combines scientific information with practical recommendations for use on commercial operations and reviews practical information on livestock handling, euthanasia, slaughter, pain relief, and assessments of abnormal behavior.

Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare fully explores developments in the key areas of agricultural animal welfare assessment and improvement. Analyzing current topical issues, as well as reviewing the historical welfare issues, the volume is a comprehensive review of the field. Divided into five sections, the book opens in Part One by reviewing advances in animal welfare science, examining cognitive psychology, genetics and genomics. Part Two then looks at transdisciplinary research in animal welfare, with coverage of bioethics, welfare and sustainability from both environmental and food safety perspectives. Part Three explores the process of translating science into policy and practice, followed by discussion on the global achievability of welfare standards in Part Four. Finally, Part Five highlights some emerging issues in agricultural animal welfare. This book is an essential part of the wider ranging series Advances in Farm Animal Welfare, with coverage of cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and aquaculture. With its expert editor and international team of contributors, Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare is a key reference tool for welfare research scientists and students, practicing vets involved in welfare assessment, and indeed anyone with a professional interest in the welfare of agricultural animals. Provides in-depth reviews of emerging topics, research and applications in agricultural animal welfare Provides coverage of topics important to all agricultural animals and complements the wider series, Agricultural Animal Welfare, which will provide comprehensive coverage of animal welfare of the world’s major farmed animals Edited by a world leading animal welfare academic, with contributions from a writing team of both leading academics and practitioners

How do you define the quality of life of a farmed animal? This timely book addresses the complex and often controversial issues surrounding the assessment and improvement of farm animal welfare. Based on a large, multi-disciplinary EU funded research project called Welfare Quality, it discusses the relevance of science based welfare assessments and the importance of establishing a fruitful dialogue between science and society. An outline is given of the development of a workable welfare assessment system for cattle, pigs and chickens as well as practical ways of improving the animals' quality of life. This book synthesises the huge body of work carried out by the largest ever international network of scientists and stakeholders in Welfare Quality. It describes some of the obstacles encountered and their solution and why particular paths were chosen. It also clearly sets out what still needs to be done and presents selected strategies and technologies (automation, proxy indicators, targeting of risk factors, etc.) designed to ensure the continued improvement of welfare and its assessment. The book provides a valuable source of knowledge on farm animal welfare for social and animal scientists, students, teachers, policy makers, lobby groups and the animal industry.

Globally, nearly 70 billion animals are farmed annually for meat, milk and eggs. Two-thirds of these are farmed intensively. The views held by food companies on animal stewardship, and the management practices and processes that they adopt are, therefore, of critical importance in determining the welfare of these animals. Yet, despite the scale of the food industry’s impact, farm animal welfare remains a relatively immature management issue. There is a lack of consensus around the specific responsibilities companies have for farm animal welfare, and around how companies should treat the animals in their or in their suppliers’ care. This book, The Business of Farm Animal Welfare, provides an extensive, authoritative analysis of current corporate practice on farm animal welfare. It critically reviews and assesses the ethical and business case for action. Through a series of practitioner case-studies, it describes how companies have addressed farm animal welfare in their operations and supply chains. It analyses the key barriers to companies adopting higher standards of farm animal welfare, and offers a series of practical recommendations to companies, consumers and policy makers on the role that they might play in raising farm animal welfare standards across the food industry. As the first comprehensive account of business and farm animal welfare, this book is an essential resource for researchers, practitioners and general readers looking to understand and influence corporate practice on farm animal welfare.

The present information resource is one of the outcomes of the work in Sub Project 3 (To define integrated, knowledge-based, practicable species-specific strategies to improve farm animal welfare) of the Welfare Quality® research project (www.welfarequality.net). This project was co-financed by the European Commission within the 6 th Framework Programme, (contract No. FOOD-CT-2004-506508), and it focussed on the integration of animal welfare in the food quality chain. It is the largest piece of integrated research work yet carried out on farm animal welfare in Europe. Forty four institutes and universities, representing thirteen European countries and four Latin American countries participated in this integrated research project. In a 'fork to farm' approach the project recognizes that consumers' perception of food quality is not only determined by its overall nature and safety but also by the welfare status of the animal from which it was produced. Thus, animal welfare is viewed as an integral part of an overall 'food quality concept'. Welfare Quality® focussed on the three main species (cattle, pigs, and chickens) and consisted of a number of Sub Projects (SPs). For example, SP 1 was designed to identify, analyse and acknowledge consumer concerns and market demands while Sub Projects 2 and 3 respectively aimed to develop and validate: i) reliable on-farm welfare assessment systems and ii) practical species-specific strategies to improve farm animal welfare. The work in SP3 addressed key welfare problems that are perceived as important by European stakeholders, including producers, retailers, academics, government and the public. These problem areas were identified in a joint exercise involving biologists, social scientists and citizens and they include handling stress, harmful traits in pigs and cattle, injurious behaviours (feather pecking and cannibalism in laying hens, and tail biting in pigs), lameness in broiler chickens and dairy cattle, neonatal mortality in pigs, and social stress in pigs and cattle. Their alleviation could greatly improve the quality of life for farm animals as well as often improving productivity and product quality and thereby generating economic benefits for the farmers.

"The economic costs and benefits of farm animal production and sustainability versus improving climate change and animal welfare presents one of the most complex dilemmas in agriculture today. This book, by top global authors and experts, outlines the problem whilst making policy-relevant recommendations"--

The domestic pig is perceived as an animal with intelligence and character and yet, in the industrialized world, the majority of people have had little or no contact with them. Pigs are subject to a wide range of environments from the tropics to the sub-arctic, ranging from small-scale, extensive systems to large-scale intensive systems. They may spend their whole life on one farm or may be subject to long-distance transport multiple times. Not surprisingly, many aspects of their life experiences can impact their welfare. This book brings together a team of leading pig welfare research scientists to review the natural history of the pig, the welfare of pigs at different stages of life and to indicate what the future holds in terms of pig welfare. The text is aimed at researchers and teachers working in veterinary and animal science together with those working in the pig industry and for governmental and non-governmental animal welfare organizations.