Welfare Assessment

Includes methods and protocols to monitor or assess animal health, pain, and other emotions.

Harris, C., White, P. J., Hall, E. et al. 2021. Evaluation of electroencephalography, behaviour and eye temperature in response to surgical castration in sheep. Animals 11(3), 637.

Castration has been demonstrated to cause pain in sheep. However, it is routinely performed for management purposes. Electroencephalography (EEG) has been used successfully to measure pain in lambs in response to castration and other husbandry...

Whittaker, A. L., Liu, Y., Barker, T. H. 2021. Methods used and application of the mouse grimace scale in biomedical research 10 years on: A scoping review. Animals 11(3), 673.

The Mouse Grimace Scale (MGS) was developed 10 years ago as a method for assessing pain through the characterisation of changes in five facial features or action units. The strength of the technique is that...

van Eerdenburg, F. J. C. M., Hof, T., Doeve, B. et al. 2021. The relation between hair-cortisol concentration and various welfare assessments of Dutch dairy farms. Animals 11(3), 821.

Many protocols have been developed to assess farm animal welfare. However, the validity of these protocols is still subject to debate. The present study aimed to compare nine welfare assessment protocols, namely: (1) Welfare Quality©...

Herlin, A., Brunberg, E., Hultgren, J. et al. 2021. Animal welfare implications of digital tools for monitoring and management of cattle and sheep on pasture. Animals 11(3), 829.

The opportunities for natural animal behaviours in pastures imply animal welfare benefits. Nevertheless, monitoring the animals can be challenging. The use of sensors, cameras, positioning equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles in large pastures has the...

Auer, U., Kelemen, Z., Engl, V. et al. 2021. Activity time budgets—A potential tool to monitor equine welfare? Animals 11(3), 850.

Horses’ behavior can provide valuable insight into their subjective state and is thus a good indicator of welfare. However, its complexity requires objective, quantifiable, and unambiguous evidence-based assessment criteria. As healthy, stress-free horses exhibit a...

van Eerdenburg, F. J. C. M., Di Giacinto, A. M., Hulsen, J. et al. 2021. A new, practical animal welfare assessment for dairy farmers. Animals 11(3), 881.

The Welfare Quality® assessment protocol (WQ) is the most extensive way to measure animal welfare. This study was set up to determine if resource-based welfare indicators, that are easier and faster to measure, could replace...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Smulders, T. V. et al. 2021. Report of the 2020 RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(1), 21-33.

The RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 27 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and share...

Zannella, A., Stanyon, R., Maglieri, V. et al. 2021. Not all yawns tell the same story: The case of Tonkean macaques. American Journal of Primatology 83(7), e23263.

Here we show for the first time that the plasticity in morphology and duration of yawning in Macaca tonkeana can be associated with different functional contexts. Macaca tonkeana is classified as a tolerant macaque species...

Coleman, K., Shapiro, S. J. (Eds.). 2021. Behavioral Biology of Laboratory Animals (1st ed). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

This 30-chapter volume informs students and professionals about the behavioral biology of animals commonly housed in laboratory and other captive settings. Each species evolved under specific environmental conditions, resulting in unique behavioral patterns, many of...

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