Animal Welfare

The Coronavirus pandemic gives rise to the possibility that animals may need to be killed on-farm, for example, if feed cannot be delivered or if the animals cannot be transported to a slaughterhouse and would otherwise suffer. It is imperative that companies continue to slaughter these animals humanely.

Issues around farm animal welfare stem principally from the gradual intensification of animal production systems over the past century. While the food industry is under pressure to boost production yields to satisfy market demands, current intensive farming methods are having a detrimental effect on the welfare of farm animals.

With the world population predicted to rise to over 9 billion by 2050, coupled with the increased demand for meat protein-based diets, the food industry needs to consider how it can respond to this growing demand while also delivering higher farm animal welfare standards.

Our Business Case for Higher Farm Animal Welfare will assist purchasers in making the case to improve standards:

• Farm Animal Welfare – Business Case for Action

What does animal welfare mean to you?

Welfare generally refers to “the quality of an animal’s life as it is experienced by an individual animal”.

In its holistic sense, welfare encompasses not only the health and physical wellbeing of the animal, but the animal’s psychological wellbeing and the ability to express its own important behaviour. Welfare can be described as high if the animals are fit and healthy, feeling good and free from suffering.

Summary

Download a summary of our technical information sheet on the topic in a simpler, easy to read format.

This leaflet explains the concept of animal welfare, how it is can be defined and the implications for sentience, emotions and productivity of modern farm animals.

A glossary of farm animal welfare terms to help you understand and communicate on farm animal welfare.

This document provides an overview of the principles of humane slaughter, an introduction to the main methods of slaughter in use commercially and general recommendations for its inclusion into corporate animal welfare policies.

An effective Antibiotic Stewardship Programme (ASP) is required to protect animal health and welfare today and maintain the efficacy of our antibiotics into the future.

An effective ASP provides a clear strategy to achieve responsible use of antibiotics in your supply chain, helping you as a company to take control of the process and ensure its effective implementation, to:

• reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics
• eliminate/robustly regulate the use of human critical antibiotics
• help prevent the development of antibiotic resistance