The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions is the first title in Blackwell Publishing Professional's groundbreaking series Issues in Animal Bioethics. This important book examines the ethical and economic importance of production animal well-being and pain management—topics of increasing concern to consumers. The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions offers veterinarians, veterinary and agriculture students, animal scientists, and food animal producers both practical methods to enhance farm animal well-being, and greater understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of those methods. With a variety of perspectives from respected experts and specialists, this book conveys new research findings and promotes valuable discourse on critical issues. Most importantly, editors Benson and Rollin provide feasible instruction to put theory into practice. The theories and applications presented in this book are likely to be legislated in the future. Therefore, it is important for veterinarians in production animal medicine to keep abreast of the latest issues in promoting animal well-being, and implement sound animal welfare methods every day. The Well-Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions provides the information veterinarians need to do both.

The past few decades have seen a virtual explosion of scientific research in the area of cognition, emotions, suffering, and mental states in animals. Studies in the field, laboratory, and clinical medical practice have amassed an overwhelming body of evidence demonstrating that mental well-being is of paramount importance in all aspects of animal care. There is no longer any reasonable doubt among researchers that mental health is of equal importance as physical health and animal well-being. Recent research convincingly shows that physical health is strongly influenced by mental states, thereby making it clear that effective health care requires attention to the emotional well-being as well as physical. Yet, for its vast importance, mental health in veterinary medicine has to date not been compiled and structured into an organized field or body of knowledge. This information, so critical to the formal establishment of the field of mental health and well-being in animals, remains scattered throughout a wide array of scientific journals. This book represents the first authoritative reference text bringing together the most up-to-date information in the variety of subjects comprising the field of mental health and well-being in animals. Bringing together a host of distinguished experts internationally noted in the fields of animal emotion research, animal behavior, cognitive science, and neuroscience, the book represents the first authoritative reference compiling the diverse information on the animal mind and combining the revolutionary advances in the cognitive sciences with the knowledge in veterinary medicine and clinical animal behavior. This book takes a descriptive and proscriptive approach to mental health, mixing the scientific research with practical information with clinical applications for veterinary health professionals to use in practice.

This book explores the importance of good nutrition in ensuring an adequate standard of welfare for farm animals. It is often not realized that farm animals can suffer when they are fed unsuitable diets, which may be because these diets are more economic or the farmer does not know how to rectify poor nutrition. This book reveals how to recognize and deal with feeding problems in farm animals, when the animal’s behaviour is indicating a deficiency, through oral stereotypies for example. Feeding livestock in emergency situations can present special challenges, and the availability of clean and potable water, one of the essential components of life, can also be an unrecognized problem for many farm animals. Feeding farm animals effectively is rarely recognized for the major welfare issue that it is. We may assume that animals in intensive husbandry conditions have adequate feed, yet it is often too concentrated and designed primarily to immediately maximize production from the animals, in the form of growth, milk yield or reproduction. In extensive rangeland conditions adequate feed supply also cannot be assured, potentially leading to undernutrition with serious consequences for the health and even survival of livestock. This book will provide a much-needed review of the relationships between nutrition and the welfare of farm animals.

The CEC-seminar on "Indicators relevant to Animal Welfare" was held on November 9 - 10, 1982 at the Institut fUr Tierzucht und Tierverhalten, Mariensee, of the Bundesforschungsanstal t fUr Landwirtschaft (FAL) - It was the intention of this meeting to outline the present state of know ledge on proven and potential indicators and to discuss their applica bility in the assessment of farm animal management systems. After an introduction of the legal and material aspects of animal welfare, the following topics were dealt with : - Significance of indicators relevant to animal welfare - Integrated systems of indicators relevant to animal welfare - Applicability of indicators in animal welfare research and control procedures. The concluding discussion focussed on the applicability of indicators in science and in practice. As a result of the seminar, the presently known indicators can be grouped into the following categories : - indicators already being applied to animal welfare assessment in prac tice, such as morbidity and mortality, technopathies, behavioural aberrations and production performances; - indicators of high sensitivity, such as physiological criteria, which as yet are too demanding for general application; - indicators still under investigation for their reliability. It became also evident that the continuous integration of indicators into canprehensive assessment systems promises an ever improving judgement of animal welfare problems. The proceedings will be of substantial value to the CEC in the pursuit of animal welfare problems

Laboratory Animal Welfare provides a comprehensive, up-to-date look into the new science of animal welfare within laboratory research. Animals specifically considered include rodents, cats and dogs, nonhuman primates, agricultural animals, avian animals and aquatic animals. The book examines the impact of experiment design and environment on animal welfare, as well as emergency situations and euthanasia practices. Readers will benefit from a review of regulations and policy guidelines concerning lab animal use, as well as information on assessing animal welfare. With discussions of the history and ethics of animals in research, and a debate on contemporary and international issues, this book is a go-to resource for laboratory animal welfare.

Environmental stress is one of the most significant factors affecting livestock performance and health, and it is only expected to increase with effects of global warming. Environmental Physiology of Livestock brings together the latest research on environmental physiology, summarizing progress in the field and providing directions for future research. Recent developments in estimating heat stress loads are discussed, as well as key studies in metabolism, reproduction, and genetic expressions. Environmental Physiology of Livestock begins with a survey of current heat indexing tools, highlighting recent discoveries in animal physiology, changes in productivity levels, and new technologies available to better estimate stress response. Using this synopsis as a point of orientation, later chapters hone in on major effects of heat stress, including changing metabolic pathways and nutrient requirements, endocrine regulation of acclimation to environmental stress, and reduced reproductive performance. The text concludes with a thorough discussion of environmental effects on gene expressions, providing important insight for future breeding practices. Environmental Physiology of Livestock is a globally contributed volume and a key resource for animal science researchers, geneticists, and breeders.

Farming for Health describes the use of farms, farm animals, plants and landscapes as a base for promoting human mental and physical health and social well-being. The book offers an overview of the development of ‘Farming for Health’ initiatives across Europe, resulting from changing paradigms in health care and the demand for new social and financial activities in agriculture and rural areas. The contributors are drawn from a range of countries and disciplines.