Welfare

Question 1

When is animal feeling/suffering at the crux of animal welfare concerns?

Answer 1

• When loss of function/physiological disturbance is and is not a welfare problem
• Society legislates to protect and safeguard animals and not plants even though they can still have health problems and unnatural lives.

Question 2

What are the 5 freedoms?

Answer 2

• Freedom from pain, injury or disease
• Freedom from hunger and thirst
• Freedom from discomfort
• Freedom from fear and distress
• Freedom to express normal behaviour – to avoid frustration

Question 3

Name the 2 scientific approaches to measuring animal welfare.

Answer 3

Motivation and preference approach

Welfare indicators approach

Question 4

What is assumed about the motivation and preference approach?

Answer 4

Animals suffer if denied resources that they are strongly motivated to obtain or if exposed to stimuli that they will work hard to avoid.

Question 5

What is an example of the motivation and preference approach?

Answer 5

Preference test: decision box that animal can go to A or B from. For example: flooring for caged hens = fine gauge wire preferred to sturdy wire in contrast to what was expected.

Question 6

What are the problems with the motivation and preference approach?

Answer 6

• Based on human consumer behaviour
• Testing in groups may cause animals to just follow on from each other.
• Finite number of resources offered.
• Variability of preference between individuals.
• Animals may show short term preferences which may do them harm in the long term, such as eating high fat foods.
• There is little cost of exploring the preferences and may not actually reflect the choice as a preference.

Question 7

How important is social contact for a pig, for example, given motivation and preference testing?

Answer 7

4 pigs trained to press a panel in a test pen to get food:

• Access to 25g food
• 15 s access to a companion
• 15 s access to an empty pen
• Cost of resources varied by increasing the number of panel presses required for each access to a resource.
• Demand for food remains fairly stable as prices increase in inelastic demand (a benchmark for an important resource
• Demand for social contact is more elastic
• Demand for the empty pen is most elastic

Question 8

How aversive is restraint and mobilisation for a sheep?

Answer 8

Sheep trained at the end of a runway they will be let free to go, restrained for 2.5 mins, restrained and wired up or restrained, wired up and electro immobilised:

• Measurements taken of how hard the animals work to resist movement down the runway/how long it takes to be pushed down.
• Consumer demand type approach can be used to show how hard animal work to avoid as well as to access.

Question 9

Are there any problems with using short-tern tests of consumer demand?

Answer 9

• Animals may be able to gain access to the resources under test when they are outside the test situation, and so their behaviour in the test may not reflect ‘true’ demand
• The duration of the test/exposure to resources may not be adequate to allow full expression of the associated behaviour
• An alternative approach is to make the tests part of the animal’s home environment

Question 10

What is assumed with physical and physiological welfare indicators?

Answer 10

• They biological responses of animals in apparently unpleasant situations reflect the degree of suffering they experience.
• Biological changes occurring in humans reporting feeling such as fear, pain, anxiety, happiness may also be sued as indicators of similar states in animals.

Question 11

What is the logic behind physical and physiological welfare indicators?

Answer 11

1. We identify a situation as being unpleasant or use motivation and preference approach to do this.
2. We measure biological responses to this situation.
3. Any consistent responses to a number of unpleasant situations are taken as indicators of poor welfare and suffering.
4. These welfare indicators are then used to assess the impact of new situations on welfare and suffering.

Question 12

What are the criticisms of physical and physiological welfare indicators?

Answer 12

• This could be criticised as anthropomorphic.
• There is evolutionary continuity: cross species similarities in anatomy, physiology, morphology and possibly mental processes
• Human as our only model of the links between behaviour, physiology and mental experience

Question 13

What are welfare indicators?

Answer 13

Can provide information on the extent to which an animal’s physical and physiological systems are disturbed. If used carefully and critically, they may also be able to act as proxy measure of mental state and suffering.

Question 14

Name some measures of physiological stress responses used as welfare indicators.

Answer 14

Heart rate
Blood pressure
Adrenaline
Cortisol
Corticosterone

Question 15

What does measuring cortisol tell us about welfare?

Answer 15

• Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
• When a stressor arrives, corticotropin releasing hormone, CRH flows from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland and is released into the blood stream.
• Adrenocorticotropic hormone, ACTH travels through the blood to the adrenal glands
• Release of cortisol/corticosterone
• This has an affect on major organs in terms of energy production and has a negative feedback on the brain to decrease CRH release
• Cortisol is used as an indicator of the stress response an animal is showing.

Question 16

Why is measuring other indicators important?

Answer 16

Cortisol levels fluctuating may be due to other factors other than stress or pain.

Question 17

Give 2 examples of behavioural welfare indicators.

Answer 17

Stereotypic licking
Biting pen fittings

Question 18

How long after the onset of stress does blood cortisol rise due to restraint and insertion of needle?

Answer 18

2 minutes within this window before cortisol begins to rise.

Question 19

Name 5 other ways to collect cortisol from samples without disturbing the animal.

Answer 19

Urine
Faeces
Saliva
Hair
Milk

Question 20

How can behaviour be a sign for poor welfare?

Answer 20

• See also distress, pain, sickness/illness
• Abnormal behaviour? Often but not always

Question 21

How can abnormal behaviour be adaptive with no welfare implications?

Answer 21

• When they are learnt, adaptive modifications, where an intended functional goal is achieved
• Prematurely weaned calves teat suckling for milk, rats learning to press lever for food
• Can indicate a learnt and adaptive behavioural modification in an environmental that differs to its natural environment

Question 22

What can abnormal behaviour indicate?

Answer 22

Failed adaptation and become maladaptive – likely poor welfare

Question 23

How can pain be clinically assessed?

Answer 23

1. Visual analogue scaling – no pain to pain as severe as possible
2. Behaviour scoring – back arch, stagger/fall, writhe, twitch

Behavioural scoring gives a higher success rate in detection of pain

Question 24

Give an example of gait analysis and lameness scoring.

Answer 24

Gait score 1: sound – walks with a smooth and fluid locomotion with flat back and even steps.

Gait score 2: imperfect locomotion – walks with a slightly uneven gait and slight joint stiffness but is not lame.

Gait score 3: mildly lame – walks with shortened strides, an arched back and a slight limp.

Gait score 4: moderately lame – walks with an obvious limp, a severely arched back and a slight head bob.

Gait score 5: severely lame – unable to bear weight on at least one limb and/or must be vigorously encouraged to stand or move, extremely arched back when standing and walking.

Question 25

Give examples of generic and species-specific pain behaviours.

Answer 25

Generic:
- Defensive behaviours, such as bucking lambs at palpation of scrotum after castration
- Hyperplasia responses, withdrawal from heat or pressure, for example

Species-specific:
- Back arching after abdominal surgery in rats
- Increasing high frequency calls in piglets in castration

Question 26

What are sickness/illness behavioural signs?

Answer 26

Behavioural changes noticeable before illness/preceding clinical signs.

Question 27

Give 4 common behavioural changes with acute infectious disease.

Answer 27

• Anorexia and increased threshold for thirst
• Sleepiness and depression
• Reduced grooming
• Is not disease specific

Question 28

What are some adaptive values of sickness behaviour?

Answer 28

• Conserving body heat and reducing energy expenditure to support fever response
• Raised body temperature slows bacterial and viral growth

Question 29

Describe how sickness behaviour is adaptive.

Answer 29

1. Pro-inflammatory cytokines acting in the brain
2. Raise thermoregulatory set-point resulting in fever
3. Fixed tissue macrophages, blood monocytes, and lymphocytes release inflammatory cytokines upon exposure to bacteria and bacterial toxins.
4. Repeat