Improving Animal Welfare : A Practical Approach

Completely updated throughout, this new edition provides a comprehensive guide to improving the lives of production animals. It covers core concepts such as handling, transport, stockmanship, husbandry procedures and euthanasia, alongside the wider context of welfare and practical advice for cattle, pigs, poultry, fish and equids.

Completely revised and updated throughout, this new edition of Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach continues to provide an accessible and comprehensive guide to improving the lives of production animals. It particularly considers advances in topics of increasing importance such as heat stress and other climate-related issues, system-specific considerations around organic farming, measuring the true sustainability of farming systems, and how to successfully transfer rapidly developing technologies from research to field. It also covers:- Core concepts of animal welfare, such as handling and transport, stockmanship, husbandry procedures and euthanasia, with an increased focus on replacing painful procedures with alternatives.- The wider context of welfare, including animal behaviour and emotions, ethics and economic factors.- Implementing effective measurement techniques to track and improve welfare, as well auditing procedures.- Practical species-specific information across cattle, pigs, poultry, fish and equids.Written by a team of experienced researchers and edited by an outstanding world expert on animal welfare, this book is essential reading for students and practitioners of ethology, animal and veterinary science, veterinary medicine, as well as anyone working directly with farm animals and committed to improving their welfare.