Consumers increasingly demand that animals
intended for human consumption are treated well. It is now well-known that health
and food quality depend, directly or indirectly, upon a good protection of
animal welfare. To address this need in recent years, the EU legislation on
this subject has continuously expanded and is likely to increase further in the
coming years. "Animal welfare" borns as a
thematic issue because, due to the natural evolution, each animal species has been
"provided" with physical, physiological and behavioral suited to deal
with various difficulties also arising from their living environment. Well-being
is an intrinsic condition of the animal: the person who is able to adapt to the
environment is in a state of well-being, on the contrary the person can not adapt
(due to his/her own psychophysical characteristics, or because it is prevented
by external factors) will bear stress conditions.
"Wellness is a state of complete
health, both physical and mental, in which the animal is in harmony with its
environment" (Hughes, 1976). Since
all animals went through this evolutionary path, and each species has adapted
to a particular habitat, any definition must take into account the welfare of
the environment, the animal’s specific physiology and behavior. Farm animals
have a set of needs similar to those of their wild ancestors, although some
needs have changed during domestication. It is obvious that basic needs, such
as food, water and shelter are not changed in the transition from wildness to
domestication. Less obvious that the wild animals’s instinct expressed in their
behaviours associated with reproduction, food search, water and shelter, are
still present in domestic animals. In
1964 Ruth Harrison published the book "Animal Machines" that raised
the question of the welfare of animals reared intensively.
Following the uproar caused by this book,
the British government commissioned a report to a group of researchers, among
whose a veterinarian who issued the Brambell Report. This report, as well as
being one of the first official documents on animal welfare, has disciplined the
principle of five freedoms for animal welfare, (later re-assessed in the
British farm animal welfare council in 1979):
1. freedom from hunger, thirst and
malnutrition;
2. Freedom from discomfort environmental;
3. freedom from diseases and injuries;
4. freedom to demonstrate the behavioral
characteristics of specific species;
5. Freedom from fear and stress.
Some of these
"freedom" are universally recognised and traditionally applied by
farmers, others fall within the "historical" competence of the veterinarian.
The last two freedom are something not always easily understood and applied and
they relate mostly to the scientific knowledge that operators should have particularly
veterinaries. The
last two freedoms, very difficult to be evaluated objectively, represent also
the highlights of European legislation on welfare farm animals.
The welfare
assessment involves a series of responses that the animal puts in place to
adapt to the environment in which it resides: the
body responds to different environmental situations not only with behavioral
changes - and the first early signs of adaptation needs - but also with
physiological and immune mechanisms, which may have an impact on its health and
growth. That is why the studies carried out on this subject, increasingly take
into account a series of reactions, which are commonly called
"indicators" of adaptation.
Their use can
help to identify possible acute stress and / or chronic over problems that over
time can have a negative impact on livestock production. Even though animal
welfare cannot be measured as simple variables like height or length, in any
case it can be evaluated by considering the various aspects and related problems. All
the systems now in use are based on a range of evaluation parameters, which can
be distinguished in two main categories:
1. parameters
relating to the animals, which measure the reactivity and the ability to adapt
to specific environment, e.g. physiological
and behavioural health.
2. parameters related
to the farm environment and its management, such as the size and
characteristics of the breeding structures (e.g. floors, microclimate, cleaning),
the bedding quality, the number of animals.
The issue of
animal welfare, ultimately, is - and will increasingly be seen - as an essential
component of an "integrated system of animal origin food quality production",
that offers to consumers products from environmentally friendly farms, where
animals are raised respecting their basic needs.
