Practical on-farm solutions for welfare and sustainability: positive welfare

Challenges

Scotland aims to provide farm animals with the highest possible standards of welfare. This aim falls within the context of a viable and adaptable agriculture sector, able to meet requirements for sustainability, climate change and biodiversity. These drivers are complex, requiring an evolving scientific evidence base to support decision-making, and flexible and innovative approaches to describe and support good welfare practices.

Agricultural practice is plagued by intractable and challenging welfare issues that are the focus of consumer attention:

• Separation of mothers and offspring
• Use of painful procedures,
• Chronic disease issues
• Confinement of animals in limited space with limited opportunities to express natural behaviour.

Increasingly, the ability of farming systems to meet consumers expectations for animal welfare are part of a ‘social licence to operate’ and essential if animal-based farming is to continue alongside other social requirements.

Positive animal welfare

Positive animal welfare (PAW) is a recent concept that emphasises animals having positive experiences. The scientific literature on PAW recognises that animals gain positive experiences by engaging in and completing rewarding behaviours (i.e., positive affective engagement (PAE)). PAE arises through the animal expressing its normal behaviour, and this can be assessed and monitored. However, farm environments can pose significant restrictions on the expression of normal behaviours.

Environmental enrichments are viewed as one response to the concern raised over behavioural restrictions. The concept of 'environmental enrichment' in scientific terms is clear; these enrichments should have functional importance to the animal and facilitate the performance of normal behaviours. However, it is unclear whether this scientific understanding of enrichment is widely shared.

However, the provision of enrichment in practice does not necessarily mean that animals benefit. Even if PAW is improved, not all enrichments are effective or used by enough animals. There is also evidence that negative factors can prevent animals from using and benefiting from enrichments. In summary, the use of appropriate environmental enrichments is key to attaining positive farm animal welfare. There are important knowledge gaps with respect to enrichment use across the different farmed species.

Questions

Solutions

This project aims to improve the effectiveness of enrichments for farmed species in Scotland. To achieve this our project will (1) develop a network (iPAW) of relevant stakeholders including relevant international contacts for improving PAW and (2) create a dedicated website (www.positiveanimalwelfare.net) as a hub of information on PAW research. We are providing practical welfare improvements to help maintain Scotland’s position as having some of the best animal welfare standards in the world.

Exploring stakeholder views on the purpose of environmental enrichment

The scientific conception of enrichment is clear that enrichments should have functional relevance to animals. Enrichments should facilitate the expression of rewarding normal behaviours. We do not know how widely the conception of enrichment is shared amongst stakeholders. A lack of a common understanding could constrain enrichments for different species. We are creating an inventory of currently applied enrichments for different species and cross-referencing this table with the scientific literature on the effectiveness of enrichments.

Assessing the use animals make of provided enrichments

Providing enrichments does not ensure that animals benefit from them, either because they are not appropriate for the species in question or because animals do not engage. This is a key issue for policy directed at improving PAW using enrichments. We are, therefore, assessing the use of enrichments in practice and new opportunities that could be used to assess them.

Evaluating the potential biological benefits of enrichment

The developing scientific literature suggests that environmental enrichment can provide hidden benefits. For example, enhancing an animal’s resilience to physical and psychological challenges. We are investigating whether enrichment improves resilience and identifying the costs and benefits of different enrichments.

Proposing actions to increase the effectiveness of enrichments 

The insights generated by our project are informing a series of discussions focused on:

• Understanding the purpose of enrichments
• Improving existing enrichments
• Assessing how individual animals use enrichments in practice
• Incentivising stakeholders to use enrichments

Progress