The focus in animal welfare research has expanded beyond only minimising suffering to include the promotion of positive experiences and a good life. Behavioural, physiological and cognitive research provide insight into positive affective states (emotions and moods) in animals and supports the notion of positive welfare. To improve the lives of farm animals, we need to understand what positive experiences in animals are and how they can be recognised on farm. This includes gathering required knowledge for the construct validation of indicators, investigating whether potential indicators occur in preferred and valued situations, validating potential indicators using ‘gold standards’ of positive affective states, and finally, integrating these potential indicators into on-farm welfare assessment protocols.
The overall objective is to identify and validate animal-based measures of positive animal welfare related to different motivational systems. Specific objectives are 1) to create an overview of current potential indicators of positive affect with their level of validation, 2) to validate these potential indicators, and 3) to propose how validated indicators may be used to assess positive welfare on farm in future. The three farm animal groups of focus in this action are pigs, ruminants and poultry. NVI will focus on research in ruminants.
The project includes both theoretical and empirical research and will be aligned with, and coordinated with the ongoing Cost Action LIFT: Lifting farm animal lives – laying the foundations for positive animal welfare (2022-2026).
Task 1: Theoretical foundations for validating indicators of positive affect:
There is no gold standard for inferring animal affective states, contrary to human research which benefits from verbal self-reports. Indicators of positive affect can be validated by investigating 1) whether the indicator changes in animals exposed to preferred/valued situations and/or situations that promote ancestral fitness, and 2) by investigating whether the indicator correlates with other already-validated indicators of positive affect. Next to this, other important aspects to be considered are sensitivity and specificity. Task 1 will identify preferred and valued situations (Task 1.1), and animal-based indicators of positive affect (Task 1.2) through literature reviews.
Task 2: Identification and validation of animal-based measures of positive affect:
In Task 1, a range of indicators of positive affect are compiled, with knowledge gaps. The judgement bias test (JBT) is assumed to be validated and is used as a gold standard to further validate other indicators of positive animal affect.
Allowing animals to achieve goals, acquire information and obtain control through natural behaviour (agency), when and how they want, is likely a ‘preferred situation’ that contributes towards promoting positive experiences (Task 2.1).
Identified potential behavioural indicators of positive affective state (vocalisations, grooming, exploratory, pro-social and play behaviour, facial expressions, body postures and tail and ear positions), as well as potential physiological measures (body temperature, heart rate variability, oxytocin, telomere attrition and BDNF) and cognitive indicators (attention and memory bias tests) may be validated through the JBT (Task 2.2), and by investigating whether they change in preferred and valued situations (Task 2.3).
Note that the behavioural indicators may be measured manually or via sensor technology. Once a relation between an animal-based measure and a positive affective state has been established, some measures may require further development in terms of feasibility for on-farm situations and also this step requires a validation (Task 2.4).
Task 3: Protocol including positive animal-based measures:
Measures to monitor positive affect that have been elucidated in previous tasks are intended to be integrated in a protocol that can be used in commercial situations to assess positive farm animal welfare. The outcome of this task will be to deliver two theoretical protocols (for short- and long-term assessment of positive affect/welfare). These prototypes will be tested in further stages of this partnership. By short-term it is meant that this protocol is aimed for a momentary, short visits to a farm. By long-term it is means that this protocol is aimed for more or less continuous or frequently repeated recording of welfare on-farm.
Partners
- The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria (BOKU)
- Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaries, Spain (IRTA)
- Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain (UAB)
- Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Germany (FLI); Forschungsinstitut fur Nutztierbiologie, Germany (FBN)
- Aarhus University, Denmark (AU); University of Copenhagen, Denmark (UCPH)
- French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, France (INRAE)
- French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, France (ANSES)
- Veterinary Research Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece (ELGRO VRI)
- Agricultural Research Council, Italy (CREA)
- University of Padova, Italy (UNIPD)
- Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise Giuseppe Caporale, Italy (IZS-Teramo)
- Universita Degli Studi di Milano, Italy (UMIL)
- Wageningen University, Netherlands (WU)
- Wageningen Research, Netherlands (WR)
- Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway (NMBU)
- instytut Zootechniki Panstwowy Instytut Badawczy, Poland (NRIAP)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden (SLU)
- Centrum Biovied Slovenskej Akademie Vied, Slovkia (CBv SAV)
- European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
