Positive Aspects of Welfare in Sheep: Current Debates and Future Opportunities

Abstract

The concept of positive welfare is an expansion of the traditional understanding that animal welfare is defined by minimizing stress, pain, suffering, and disease. Positive welfare shifts the animal welfare narrative from a focus on reducing negative experiences to proactively providing animals with opportunities to have positive experiences and feelings. The concept, although around for several decades, is in its infancy in terms of developing ways of assessing positive welfare on farms, especially in extensive systems, and there are challenges in the adoption of positive welfare practices and the monitoring of continuous improvement at the farm level. Using an iterative approach, this critical review aims to explore the extent to which positive welfare interventions and indicators are positioned and have been developed within the animal welfare literature for sheep. This paper critiques existing positive welfare indicators, such as choices in food and the physical environment, conspecific social synchronization, maternal bonds, intergenerational knowledge transfer, positive human–animal relationships, etc., as currently assessed by the ‘good life framework’. It also reviews the characteristics of scientific measures for (positive) affective states in the current sheep literature and their potential contribution to understanding positive welfare states in sheep. In conclusion, this paper provides recommendations for future research regarding sheep welfare.

Development of a Parturition Detection System for Korean Native Black Goats

“…We can also conclude that lying behavior is a marker of rest, thus providing a more accurate indication of welfare. Lying behavior has already been used to assess welfare in cattle [27], sheep [28,29], and goats [30,31]. In particular, lying behavior has been used in dairy goat species as one of the 25 welfare indicators, with abnormal lying posture indicating that the animal may be in pain [32].…”

Refinement in Post-Operative Care for Orthopaedic Models: Implementing a Sheep Walking Cast (SWC) for Effective Tibial Fracture Management

“…The ethological profile on sheep species-typical behaviour should be of interest to refine and reduce any burden. Sheep are social animals, forming stable groups known as flocks [47]. Therefore, they should never be housed without at least visual and olfactory contact with other sheep [48].…”

Assessing Animal Welfare Risk in Fibre-Producing Animals by Applying the Five Domains Framework

“…Our second research focus for designing the tool was on exploring different indicators and parameters to define our research questions. The resources used for this were the international literature and science on animal welfare states as well as information on current farming practices and husbandry systems that are known to cause pain, harm, distress, and suffering to the animals [31][32][33]. The species we investigated for the risk assessment development were goats, sheep, alpacas, waterfowl, and cattle.…”

“…This category requires immediate action to save animal lives and/or end prolonged suffering. Probability for poor animal welfare (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39) means that the risk of most painful and ethically questionable practices is high and that we would expect prompt short-term improvements, along with substantial changes to counteract poor welfare states of the animals. Probability for acceptable animal welfare category (40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59) means that the risk of poor animal welfare states is present, but not very high.…”