Quantifying well-being in farm animals

Putten, G. van

Quantifying well-being in farm animals

1980

Putten, G. van (Instituut voor Veeteeltkundig Onderzoek "Schoonoord", Zeist (Netherlands))

Lorz (5) defined well-being as: 'Living in harmony with the environment and with itself, both physically and psychologically'. His description seems to be widely accepted. However, the question of the parameters to be used continues to be open. The present paper is concerned with ten methods of quantifying well-being in general and a scheme for measuring well-being by ethological methods in particular. The diagram (4.5) is based on the assumption that a (farm) animal tries to satisfy its exogenous and endogenous needs by stimuli specific to each single need. When the animal is successful with or without adaptation, the consummatory act is regarded as 'normal'. When the stimuli do not show the specificity required or are entirely unacceptable, animals will usually express themselves in conflict behaviour or vacuum activities. These two types of behaviour are regarded as indicators of lower levels of well-being. By recording and comparing frequencies of conflict behaviour and vacuum activity in various housing systems, conclusions can be drawn regarding the well-being of the animals involved. The model adopted has its restrictions. No environment immediately provides all required stimuli, and they are entirely absent in some. This conflict behaviour and these vacuum activities may be recorded in every housing or husbandry system. As (marked) qualitative differences are not observed, differences in quantity are important. This implies that usually only 24-hour observations or at least representative periods will be reliable

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