Ethical Animal Management Framework for Evaluating Welfare Practices in Modern Livestock Systems

Abstract

The modern-day livestock industry faces increasing criticism concerning ethical treatment of animals due to intensification, technological advances and changing social expectations. However, contemporary methods for assessing welfare mostly concentrate either on physical health parameters or narrow regulatory compliance issues, neglecting more holistic approaches which would cover physical, behavioral, affective and governance aspects of animal welfare at once in a single evaluation system. In this paper an Ethical Animal Management Framework (EAMF) for evaluation of welfare practices in intensive, semi-intensive and extensive livestock production systems will be proposed. Welfare assessment will be made based on five interrelated dimensions, namely: physical health; behavioral activity; affective state; ethical-procedural governance; and impact of technology on welfare. Taking from the current welfare science and animal ethics literatures, the framework incorporates scientific welfare criteria with ethical criteria to facilitate the identification of welfare deficiencies and priorities for interventions by the producer, auditor, and policymaker. The present study also provides an illustration of the use of this framework by conducting a comparative analysis among three different types of livestock systems, emphasizing the areas where technological interventions such as precision livestock farming and virtual fencing have either helped improve or degraded welfare outcomes. The suggested ethical animal management framework provides a tool for welfare auditing that is replicable and ethical.