1,894 research outputs found
Happy or healthy? Public perspectives on farm animal health and natural behaviours and opportunities for positive welfare - Research Brief
Positive Animal Welfare: Similarities and differences between scientific and farmer perspectives - Research Brief
Breeding for behavioural change in farm animals: Practical, economic and ethical 1 considerations
In farm animal breeding, behavioural traits are rarely included in selection programmes despite their potential to improve animal production and welfare. Breeding goals have been broadened beyond production traits in most farm animal species to include health and functional traits, and opportunities exist to increase the inclusion of behaviour in breeding indices. On a technical level, breeding for behaviour presents a number of particular challenges compared to physical traits. It is much more difficult and time-consuming to directly measure behaviour in a consistent and reliable manner in order to evaluate the large numbers of animals necessary for a breeding programme. For this reason, the development and validation of proxy measures of key behavioural traits is often required. Despite these difficulties, behavioural traits have been introduced by certain breeders. For example, ease of handling is now included in some beef cattle breeding programmes. While breeding for behaviour is potentially beneficial, ethical concerns have been raised. Since animals are adapted to the environment rather than the other way around, there may be a loss of 'naturalness' and/or animal integrity. Some examples, such as breeding for good maternal behaviour, could enhance welfare, production and naturalness, although dilemmas emerge where improved welfare could result from breeding away from natural behaviour. Selection against certain behaviours may carry a risk of creating animals which are generally unreactive ('zombies'), although such broad effects could be measured and controlled. Finally, breeding against behavioural measures of welfare could inadvertently result in resilient animals ('stoics') that do not show behavioural signs of low welfare yet may still be suffering. To prevent this, other measures of the underlying problem should be used, although cases where this is not possible remain troubling
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CAPE Times P Explains Lightning Over Land But Not the Land-Ocean Contrast
The contemporaneous pointwise product of convective available potential energy (CAPE) and precipitation is shown to be a good proxy for lightning. In particular, the CAPE Ă— P proxy for lightning faithfully replicates seasonal maps of lightning over the contiguous United States, as well as the shape, amplitude, and timing of the diurnal cycle in lightning. Globally, CAPE Ă— P correctly predicts the distribution of flash rate densities over land, but it does not predict the pronounced land-ocean contrast in flash rate density; some factor other than CAPE or P is responsible for that land-ocean contrast
'Mum cleaned it and I just played with it': Children's perceptions of their roles and responsibilities in the care of family pets
An exploratory interview study of researchers’ and technicians’ perceptions of rat tickling
This paper highlights the main themes which emerged from a study carried out with Animal Technicians and researchers to better understand:• perceptions of rat tickling• potential drivers and barriers to the uptake of ticklingin a laboratory environmentThe interviewees indicated they had positive attitudes towards rats and the idea of rat tickling with positive comments about rats’ social behaviour, their intelligence and their capacity to interact with Animal Technicians andresearchers.The participants indicated that barriers to wider uptake of rat tickling including time constraints, a lack of training in the specifics of rat tickling and how to interpret rat responses to tickling. In addition, there was mention of concerns over tickling affecting experimental integrity and the need to maintain professional detachment from rats as experimental animals
An exploratory interview study of researchers’ and technicians’ perceptions of rat tickling
This paper highlights the main themes which emerged from a study carried out with Animal Technicians and researchers to better understand:• perceptions of rat tickling• potential drivers and barriers to the uptake of ticklingin a laboratory environmentThe interviewees indicated they had positive attitudes towards rats and the idea of rat tickling with positive comments about rats’ social behaviour, their intelligence and their capacity to interact with Animal Technicians andresearchers.The participants indicated that barriers to wider uptake of rat tickling including time constraints, a lack of training in the specifics of rat tickling and how to interpret rat responses to tickling. In addition, there was mention of concerns over tickling affecting experimental integrity and the need to maintain professional detachment from rats as experimental animals
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