A consensus on the definition of positive animal welfare.

The concept of animal welfare is evolving due to progress in our scientific understanding of animal biology and changing societal expectations. Animal welfare science has been primarily concerned with minimizing suffering, but there is growing interest in also promoting positive experiences, grouped under the term positive animal welfare (PAW). However, there are discrepancies in the use of the term PAW.

The construction of a measure of behavioural complexity as a potential individual-based welfare indicator and its theoretical validation.

Behavioural complexity is likely to reflect how animals cope with their environment. A large behavioural repertoire and the ability to flexibly apply these behaviours provide an individual with a greater likelihood of adapting to its (captive) environment. Here, we developed a procedure to aggregate different behavioural measures into a condensed measure of behavioural complexity based on 14 features, which were previously proposed (e.

Pinpointing pigs: performance and challenges of an ultra-wideband real-time location system for tracking growing-finishing pigs under practical conditions.

Real-Time Location Systems (RTLSs) are promising precision livestock farming tools and have been employed in behavioural studies across various farm animal species. However, their application in research with fattening pigs is so far unexplored. The implementation of these systems has great potential to gain insight into pigs' spatial behaviour such as the use of functional areas and pigs' proximity to each other as indicators for social relationships.

Unexpected bat community changes along an urban-rural gradient in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan area.

Urbanization gradients are increasingly used in ecological studies to discover responses of species communities to different intensities of human-induced habitat transformation. Here, we investigated patterns of bat communities against the background of different urbanization levels using a priori defined urbanization categories based on distance classes (5 km intervals) along a linear transect from the urban core of the city of Berlin westwards into the rural outskirts of the state of Brandenburg. Using linear-mixed effects models, we found that "distance class", as a proxy for urbanization level, is a meaningful and suitable predictor of bat species richness and diversity.

Sow serenity: automatic long-term measurement of lying behavior in crates and free-farrowing pens using 3D accelerometers.

Accelerometers are useful in analyzing lying behavior in farm animals. The effect of the farrowing system on sow lying behavior has been studied around parturition, but not long-term. In a natural environment, sows increase activity 14 d post parturition, which we expected to be also evident in housed sows when they can move freely.

Why workshops work: Examining the efficacy of training trainers to train goats.

Experimental procedures involving farm animals are often associated with stress due to restraining. Stress can be reduced through use of positive reinforcement training, which then serves as refinement according to the 3Rs principles. Trainer skills, however, may influence the feasibility and success of animal training.

Comparing lying behaviour of young riding horses on days in an individual indoor box, on an outdoor paddock alone, or in pairs and in the following night.

Background: Horses must lie down to go into vital rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep. If they are not lying down for sufficiently long periods they can become so sleep-deprived that they collapse uncontrollably, which results in a risk of injuries.

Objectives: To investigate how recumbency as a prerequisite to REM sleep on the experimental days and the following nights was influenced by changes in social and spatial environment throughout the day.

Dairy vs beef production - expert views on welfare of cattle in common food production systems.

Consumers' views and concerns about the welfare of farm animals may play an important role in their decision to consume dairy, meat and/or plants as their primary protein source. As animals are killed prematurely in both dairy and beef industries, it is important to quantify and compare welfare compromises in these two sectors before the point of death. Seventy world-leading bovine welfare experts based in 23 countries were asked to evaluate the likelihood of a bovine to experience 12 states of potential welfare concern, inspired by the Welfare Quality® protocol.

Determining the value of preferred goods based on consumer demand in a home-cage based test for mice.

From the preference of one good over another, the strength of the preference cannot automatically be inferred. While money is the common denominator to assess the value of goods in humans, it appears difficult at first glance to put a price tag on the decisions of laboratory animals. Here we used consumer demand tests to measure how much work female mice expend to obtain access to different liquids.

Effects of small milking stalls on stress responses in dairy cows during milking in group milking parlors.

Milking stall dimensions have not been adapted to the increase in cow body size caused by selection for better milking performance over the past decades. Improper milking stall dimensions might limit cow comfort, could lead to stress responses during milking and thus could negatively affect cow welfare. A crossover study was conducted in an experimental milking parlor that was converted from a herringbone (HB) to a side-by-side (SBS) parlor.

Association of body condition with lameness in dairy cattle: a single-farm longitudinal study.

This research communication describes the relationship between the occurrence of lameness and body condition score (BCS) in a sample of 288 cows from a single farm that were repeatedly scored in the course of 9 months while controlling for confounding variables. The relationship between BCS and lameness was evaluated using generalised linear mixed-effects models. It was found that the proportion of lame cows was higher with decreasing but also with increasing BCS, increased with lactation number and decreased with time since the last claw trimming.

Body size in relation to cubicle dimensions affects lying behavior and joint lesions in dairy cows.

Adequate cubicle dimensions are important for dairy cows to allow for species-appropriate lying behavior. Even though cow body size has increased in the last 2 decades, the cubicle dimensions of housing systems built many years ago have not been adjusted on most farms. Therefore, cows may be impaired in their lying behaviors, and thus the present study aimed to determine the influence of the ratio of body size to cubicle dimension on lying behavior and joint lesions.

Expression of emotional valence in pig closed-mouth grunts: Involvement of both source- and filter-related parameters.

Emotion expression plays a crucial role for regulating social interactions. One efficient channel for emotion communication is the vocal-auditory channel, which enables a fast transmission of information. Filter-related parameters (formants) have been suggested as a key to the vocal differentiation of emotional valence (positive versus negative) across species, but variation in relation to emotions has rarely been investigated.

Mood induction alters attention toward negative-positive stimulus pairs in sheep.

Mood is a lasting affective state that influences motivation and decision-making by pre-shaping a subject's expectations (pessimism/optimism). Mood states affect biases in judgment, memory, and attention. Due to a lack of verbal report, assessing mood in non-human animals is challenging and is often compromised by intense training sessions.

Executing specific foraging behaviours does not represent a general goal state of foraging in dry sows (Sus scrofa).

Intensively housed domestic pigs (Sus scrofa) have little opportunity to perform diverse foraging behaviour though they still seem strongly motivated to do so. Here, we investigated whether the execution of specific behaviours may in itself satisfy their foraging motivation. We elicited the specific foraging behaviours rooting, grazing, and biting & chewing by providing 24 dry sows with three different substrates.

Effect of milking stall dimensions on upper limb and shoulder muscle activity in milkers.

Increasing societal awareness for animal welfare can promote changes in legislation. Some of these changes may also affect the person that interacts with the animal in a shared workspace, such as in milking stalls. Swiss milking stalls were designed many years ago, when cows were smaller than they are today.

Under temperate weather conditions, dairy goats use an outdoor run more with increasing warmth and avoid light wind or rain.

Access to an outdoor run might provide some benefits for the social and activity behavior of dairy goats. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of weather parameters on outdoor run use by dairy goats under temperate weather conditions. Data were collected from February to April and in October, 2014, on 14 commercial dairy goat farms in Switzerland and Germany for 14 d per farm.

Weak General but No Specific Habituation in Anticipating Stimuli of Presumed Negative and Positive Valence by Weaned Piglets.

Positive and negative stimuli have asymmetric fitness consequences. Whereas, a missed opportunity may be compensated, an unattended threat can be fatal. This is why it has been hypothesised that habituation to positive stimuli is fast while it may be difficult to habituate to negative stimuli, at least for primary (innate) stimuli.

Valence and Intensity of Video Stimuli of Dogs and Conspecifics in Sheep: Approach-Avoidance, Operant Response, and Attention.

Stimuli are often presumed to be either negative or positive. However, animals' judgement of their negativity or positivity cannot generally be assumed. A possibility to assess emotional states in animals elicited by stimuli is to investigate animal preferences and their motivation to gain access to these stimuli.

Mood As Cumulative Expectation Mismatch: A Test of Theory Based on Data from Non-verbal Cognitive Bias Tests.

Affective states are known to influence behavior and cognitive processes. To assess mood (moderately long-term affective states), the cognitive judgment bias test was developed and has been widely used in various animal species. However, little is known about how mood changes, how mood can be experimentally manipulated, and how mood then feeds back into cognitive judgment.

Impact of male presence on female sociality and stress endocrinology in wild house mice (Mus musculus domesticus).

In group living animals, reproductive competition plays an important role in shaping social relationships and associations among female group members. In this study, we investigated the impact of male presence on the development of female-female competition and female sociality in groups of female wild house mice, using physiological and behavioral parameters. We predicted that, by eliciting intra-sexual competition, males influence social relationships among female group members and thus affect female associations to potential cooperation partners.

Effect of rubber mats and perforation in the lying area on claw and limb lesions of fattening pigs.

Claw and leg lesions are frequently observed in finishing pigs and are likely to compromise their welfare. Providing softer than the usual concrete flooring may reduce both the frequency and severity of these lesions. Therefore, this study evaluated the influence of rubber mats and floor perforation in the lying area on claw and leg health of finishing pigs.