Research Projects – Welfare Footprint Project

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Research projects that are on-going or have been recently completed.

METHOD DEVELOPMENT

Development of analytical framework for the quantification of pain in animals, operationally defined as ‘any felt negative affective state’, encompassing experiences of somatic (physical pain) and mental origin (psychological pain).

CUMULATIVE PAIN

Quantification of negative affective states in animals

Framework for assessing pain as a time series. The approach maps different conditions to a common scale (time in pain), providing the basis for quantifying the burden of pain endured by individuals, populations.

PAIN-TRACKS

Notation systems to describe human and animal pain

Data visualization framework designed to convey time-ordered descriptions of typical lifecycles within production systems, along with information on welfare challenges.

PROCESSOGRAMS

Making visual sense of animal production systems

HOW ATTENTION MODULATES THE PERCEIVED INTENSITY AND DURATION OF SIMULTANEOUS AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCES, AND THE POTENTIAL FOR POSITIVE WELFARE

ATTENTION & PAIN

The role of attention on pain & the Potential for Positive Welfare

QUANTIFYING PAIN IN POULTRY

Investigation of the impact of the Better Chicken Commitment, a set of welfare standards for broiler chickens that address stocking densities, the use of slower growing breeds and improved environmental standards.

BROILER WELFARE

Impact of the Better Chicken Commitment

This project quantified the welfare impacts of existing and potential stunning methods of poultry prior to slaughter.

STUNNING REFORMS

Welfare differences of stunning methods

Quantification of the impact of reforms aimed at improving the welfare of commercial layers, specifically the transition to cage-free production underway in many countries.

CAGE-FREE

Impact of transition to cage-free systems

Largest-to-date analysis of commercial data on egg-laying hen mortality, encompassing data from >176 million hens and 16 countries.

LAYER MORTALITY

Analysis of mortality in indoor systems

QUANTIFYING PAIN IN PIGS AND FISH

This projects investigates the effect of several welfare reforms for pigs, including the elimination of gestation crates for sows, surgical castration in male piglets, among others.

REFORMS IN PIGS

Impact of Several Welfare Reforms

Productivity of mother pigs is lower, and mortality higher, in countries that still confine them in gestation crates

MORTALITY IN SOWS

Productivity and mortality worse in gestation crates

PRELIMINARY APPRAISAL OF DIFFERENCES IN THE WELFARE OF TOP FARMED FISH SPECIES

TOP FARMED SPECIES

Possible differences in the loss of welfare in top farmed species

This project is aimed at estimating the impact of different standards for salmon welfare, including improvements in water quality, restrictions on fasting, management of stocking densities, and use of effective stunning prior to slaughter.

SALMON WELFARE

Impact of standards for salmon welfare

QUANTIFYING PAIN IN WILD ANIMALS

Although originally designed with intensively farmed animals in mind, the Cumulative Pain metric can inform studies on wild animal welfare.

PAIN IN THE WILD

Cumulative Pain metric in wild animal welfare assessments

Employment of the concept of 'life-fate' for the description of the diversity and distribution of the affective experiences of animals in the wild.

LIFE FATES

The concept of life-fates to raise awareness on wild animal suffering

Other Contributions in the Animal Welfare Sciences

This analysis discusses if judgment biases should be interpreted as directly reflecting an animal’s emotional state, or if alternatively emerge from an animal’s tolerance for risk and propensity for exploration.

METRICS & INDICATORS

Judgment biases: indicative of affective states or risk tolerance?

Metrics vs. Indicators: Clarifying Essential Concepts in Animal Welfare Assessment

METRICS & INDICATORS

Metrics and indicators are used interchangeably, bu aren’t equivalent

Time is at the heart of how conscious organisms experience life

RESEARCH GAPS

Animal welfare science must look at time

Despite substantial progress over the last decades in the understanding of poultry welfare, critical research gaps still abound

RESEARCH GAPS

Knowledge and evidence gaps in poultry welfare research

HUMAN HEALTH AND ANIMAL WELFARE

In Chapter 24 (Human Health and Animal Welfare), we describe how impoverishment of animal welfare in modern animal production became a major driver of infectious disease emergence at a global level.

ONE HEALTH

Routledge Handbook on Animal Welfare

Analysis of the association between major global health risks, such as the emergence highly pathogenic viruses and antimicrobial resistance, and compromised animal welfare in modern animal farming.

ONE HEALTH

Animal welfare effects on human health