Moles are widely trapped as pests on farms and amenity land in Britain. Spring traps for killing mammals generally require welfare approval in the UK, but mole traps are exempt. Previous research demonstrated wide variation in the mechanical performance of mole traps. In this context, we aimed to produce new data on the welfare impact of kill-trapping moles in the field. We collected 50 moles trapped in southern England (November 2008-August 2009). Captures peaked during the peak in male breeding activity, when captures were almost exclusively male. Post mortem and x-ray (radiation) examinations were conducted to determine injuries and likely cause of death. No moles sustained damaged skulls or upper cervical vertebrae (which could cause unconsciousness immediately). The primary identifiable cause of death for all but one mole was acute haemorrhage; this contrasts with the findings of the only previous such study, in which only one mole showed clear evidence of haemorrhaging. Some moles may have asphyxiated although it was not possible to determine this. Moles most likely became unconscious before death, but times to unconsciousness, and death, can be determined only through killing trials and further investigation is urgently needed. This should be done through the spring traps approval process; this could improve the welfare standards of trapping for many thousands of moles each year. Mole trapping for long-term population control might be better targeted after the peak in male breeding activity, when females are more likely to be caught, but this would threaten the welfare of dependent young underground.

In some parts of the world, the laboratory pig (Sus scrofa) is often housed in individual, sterile housing which may impose stress. Our objectives were to determine the effects of isolation and enrichment on pigs housed within the PigTurn® — a novel penning system with automated blood sampling — and to investigate tear staining as a novel welfare indicator. Twenty Yorkshire × Landrace weaner pigs were randomly assigned to one of four treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial combination of enrichment (non-enriched [NE] or enriched [E]) and isolation (visually isolated [I] or able to see another pig [NI]). Pigs were catheterised and placed into the PigTurns® 48 h post recovery. Blood was collected automatically twice daily to determine white blood cell (WBC) differential counts and assayed for cortisol. Photographs of the eyes were taken daily and tear staining was quantified using a 0-5 scoring scale and Image-J software to measure stain area and perimeter. Behaviour was video recorded and scan sampled to determine time budgets. Data were analysed as an REML using the MIXED procedure of SAS. Enrichment tended to increase proportion of time standing and lying laterally and decrease plasma cortisol, tear-stain area and perimeter. There was a significant isolation by enrichment interaction. Enrichment given to pigs housed in isolation had no effect on plasma cortisol, but greatly reduced it in non-isolated pigs. Tear-staining area and perimeter were highest in the NE-I treatment compared to the other three treatments. Eosinophil count was highest in the E-NI treatment and lowest in the NE-I treatment. The results suggest that in the absence of enrichment, being able to see another animal but not interact may be frustrating. The combination of no enrichment and isolation maximally impacted tear staining and eosinophil numbers. However, appropriate enrichment coupled with proximity of another pig would appear to improve welfare.

While concerns regarding the day-to-day management of domestic horses have been raised in relation to behaviour problems and welfare, most published studies have focused on the management of performance horses and less is known about the routine management of leisure horses and the prevalence of behavioural problems within this population. The objective of this study was to generate data on the day-to-day management of UK leisure horses and to quantify the prevalence of stable/stall-related and handling behaviour problems. A self-administered internet survey was used to collect individual horse-level data from a convenience sample of leisure horse owners. The survey was online for a year and respondents were asked to report on their routine over the previous week to minimise recall bias. The survey covered the horses’ stable and turn-out routine and environments, including opportunities for social contact with other horses. Respondents were also asked to rate the frequency their horse displayed 20 stable-related and handling behaviour problems. Data on 1,850 individual horses were collected. Stable-related and handling behaviour problems were displayed by 82% of horses sampled. The findings suggest a trend towards year-round stabling. The restriction in turn-out opportunities may have welfare costs for the horses involved. The high prevalence of stable-related and handling problems, including stereotypies, is a concern.

The energetic costs of animal movement change with body condition, although the consequences of this for foraging efficiency are rarely considered. We deployed externally attached devices to Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus), known to increase the costs of swimming via increased drag in a consistent manner, and noted, however, that foraging behaviour and efficiency varied dramatically between years. We used our results to construct an energetics-based model and found that small increases in drag due to the attachment of externally attached tags predicted accelerating harm as prey availability decreased, which accorded with our observations. This explains earlier observations of differential breeding success in tagged versus untagged penguins in particular years, highlights the importance of understanding how animal body condition may affect population processes in general and advocates caution in interpretations of tag-derived data over variable environmental conditions.

Regarding broilers, Brazil is the third largest producer and the leading chicken meat exporter in the world. Independent certifications are required by some importers in the European Union (EU) to guarantee compliance with minimum welfare requirements. Our objective was to compare broiler chicken welfare in GLOBALGAP® certified (C) and non-certified (N) intensive farms in the State of Paraná, Brazil, using the Welfare Quality® protocol. Ten farms in each group were evaluated and data were transformed using scores that ranged from 0 to 100, where 100 is the best condition. Results suggested that farms adhered to minimum welfare standards, regardless of certification and that the adoption of standards based on overseas rules may have limitations for the improvement of animal welfare. In order to further improve broiler welfare in Brazil, more rigorous standards should be developed.

Maintaining and promoting animal health and welfare are important but challenging goals in livestock farming. Animal health and welfare planning aims to contribute to improvements in the herd through interventions in a structured way. This review provides an overview of current scientific approaches to and improvements achieved by health and welfare planning in dairy herds regarding the health and welfare state of the cows, economic effects, and non-monetary benefits to farmers. Implementation of changes in management and housing is based on an assessment of the health and welfare state and relies on the participation of all involved persons. Farm-specific measures of management and housing, high levels of compliance with those measures, continuous review, and prompt adaptation are decisive. Improvements in health and welfare following the use of planning have been shown by several on-farm studies, especially in the context of mastitis and lameness. Studies on health and welfare planning that consider a more comprehensive view of welfare are scarce and the limited evidence available indicates that improvements may be less likely to be achieved. Apart from health and welfare benefits for the animals, economic and non-monetary benefits for the farmers are equally important. Costs of diseases and impaired health are available, while costs and benefits of interventions have been estimated with regard to mastitis and lameness only. Non-monetary factors (eg job satisfaction) have been reported as motivating factors for farmers but have attracted little scientific interest. Further research should focus on welfare aspects that go beyond the most important production diseases and the economic and non-monetary benefits of improving health and welfare in dairy cattle.

Lameness is considered a major problem in dairy production. Lameness is commonly detected with locomotion scores assigned to cows under farm conditions, but raters are often trained and assessed for reliability and agreement by using video recordings. The aim of this study was to evaluate intra- and inter-rater reliability and agreement of experienced and inexperienced raters for locomotion scoring performed live and from video, and to calculate the influence of raters and the method of observation (live or video) on the probability of classifying a cow as lame. Using a five-level locomotion score, cows were scored twice live and twice from video by three experienced and two inexperienced raters for three weeks. Every week different cows were scored. Intra- and inter-rater reliability (expressed as weighted kappa, kw) and agreement (expressed as percentage of agreement, PA) for live/live, live/video and video/video comparisons were determined. A logistic regression was performed to estimate the influence of the rater and method of observation on the probability of classifying a cow as lame in live and video observation. Experienced raters had higher values for intra-rater reliability and agreement for video/video than for live/live and live/video comparison. Inexperienced raters, however, did not differ for intra- and inter-rater reliability and agreement for live/live, live/video and video/video comparisons. The logistic regression indicated that raters were responsible for the main effect and the method of observation (live or from video) had a minor effect on the probability for classifying a cow as lame (locomotion score ≥ 3). In conclusion, under the present experimental conditions, experienced raters performed better than unexperienced raters when locomotion scoring was done from video. Since video observation did not show any important influence in the probability of classifying a cow as lame, video observation seems to be an acceptable method for locomotion scoring and lameness assessment in dairy cows.

The development of accurate measures of animal emotions is important for improving and promoting animal welfare. Cognitive bias indicates the effect of emotional states on cognitive processes, such as memory, attention, and judgement. Cognitive bias tests complement existing behavioural and physiological measures for assessing the valence of animal emotions indirectly. The judgement bias test has been used to assess emotional states in non-human animals; mainly in laboratory settings. The aim of this review is to summarise the findings on the use of the judgement bias test approach in assessing emotions in non-human animals, focusing in particular on farm livestock. The evidence suggests that it is possible to manipulate affective states and induce judgement bias effects in farm livestock. In addition, the results support the effectiveness of manipulating environmental variables for inducing negative or positive affective states. However, the evidence from farm livestock does not consistently confirm the directionality of the hypotheses. The use of specific strategies to induce positive or negative judgement bias, such as the manipulation of housing conditions, could account for the inconsistency of findings. The study of cognitive processes related to emotional states in livestock has great potential to advance and improve our understanding of animal welfare.

Lameness in breeding swine has a large negative economic impact and is a welfare concern. Pain-related behaviour, such as postural changes, may be used to evaluate the presence and severity of pain in animals. The objective of this work was to determine the effects of flunixin meglumine (FM) and meloxicam (M) on postural changes in lame sows. Lameness was induced in 24 mature sows (Sus scrofa) using a chemical synovitis model. Three treatments were compared: FM (2.2 mg kg−1; n = 24, intramuscular [IM]), M (1.0 mg kg−1; n = 24, by mouth [PO]) and sterile saline (equivalent volume to FM; n = 24 [IM]), administered approximately 28 and 52 h after lameness induction. Behavioural data were collected in the home pen during 12-h periods and quantified using 15-min scan sampling on the day prior to (-24 h; Day-1) through +168 h post lameness induction. Frequency of behaviour was analysed by day using generalised linear mixed model methods. The frequency of standing postures significantly decreased and lying postures increased 24-72 h post lameness induction relative to baseline day. All postures returned to baseline frequencies by +168 h. Meloxicam-treated sows demonstrated lower frequencies of lying postures +48 and +72 h after lameness induction compared to saline-treated sows. Flunixin-treated sows did not differ in lying behaviours compared to saline-treated sows. No differences were noted in standing or sitting postures between treatments. The results of this study suggest that meloxicam mitigates pain sensitivity as demonstrated by higher frequency of standing and lower frequency of lying compared to saline-treated sows.

Injurious pecking remains one of the biggest animal welfare and economic challenges for free-range egg producers. This prospective epidemiological study investigated the development of vent pecking (VP) and cannibalism on 62 free-range and organic UK farms (119 flocks). Flocks were visited at 25 (± 5) and 40 (± 5) weeks of age. Rates of VP were recorded and farmers were asked whether they had observed cannibalism in their flocks. Environmental and management data were collected for each flock. Risk factors associated with these behaviours were modelled using MLwiN. VP was observed in 19.5 and 29.9% of flocks, at mean rates of 0.35 and 0.21 bouts per bird per h, at 25 and 40 weeks, respectively. Cannibalism was reported at 22.6% of visits. The odds of flocks showing VP or cannibalism increased with rate of severe feather pecking (SFP). VP was more likely to be observed in laying houses with more and/or longer pop holes and where feed was scattered on the floor. Providing more aerial perch length, or perches > 0.5 m in height, was associated with increased risk of VP. When SFP was excluded from the model, likelihood of VP was higher in flocks fed pelleted feed. All of these may provide a useful basis from which to derive management strategies to reduce the risk of VP and thus improve the welfare of laying hens. However, it is important to remember that this study does not elucidate the causal relationships between these variables, and further work is needed to understand the mechanism behind these associations.