Welfare Assessment

Nesting behavior is associated with body weight and grip strength loss in mice suffering from experimental arthritis

Objective animal health evaluation is essential to determine welfare and discomfort in preclinical in vivo research. Body condition scores, body weight, and grimace scales are commonly used to evaluate well-being in murine rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis experiments. However, nest-building,...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Dietrich, T., Aigner, A., Hildebrandt, A. et al. 2023. Nesting behavior is associated with body weight and grip strength loss in mice suffering from experimental arthritis. Scientific Reports 13(1), 23087.

What do we know about the use of EEG monitoring during equine anesthesia: A review

Electroencephalography is a noninvasive method used for the measurement of central nervous system bioelectrical activity. Besides its use for neurological disorders diagnostics in humans and animals, it was found to be useful as a part of the anesthetic monitoring. Introducing...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Equine

Citation: Drewnowska, O., Lisowska, B., Turek, B. 2019. What do we know about the use of EEG monitoring during equine anesthesia: A review. Applied Sciences 9(18), 3678.

Cognitive tasks as measures of pig welfare: A systematic review

Cognitive approaches are increasingly used to assess animal welfare, but no systematic review has been conducted on pigs despite their cognitive capacities. Our aims were two-fold: first, to assess the popularity and heterogeneity of this approach by quantifying the different...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Pig

Citation: Ede, T., Parsons, T. D. 2023. Cognitive tasks as measures of pig welfare: A systematic review. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.

Welfare indices in Anurans under human care

Certain species within the order Anura are relatively new in the context of exotic animals as pets, and the precise conditions required for their optimal care and well-being are still not well understood. This knowledge gap highlights the crucial need...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Amphibian, Frog & Toad

Citation: Cortés Pérez, E., Maldonado Reséndiz, R. I. 2023. Welfare indices in Anurans under human care. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 4(3), 613–622.

Fish welfare in aquaculture: Physiological and immunological activities for diets, social and spatial stress on mediterranean aqua cultured species

Welfare assessment currently is less well-characterized for aquatic animals and the classical methodologies used for terrestrial animals are not adequate to improve our knowledge about fish well-being. Among different approaches, the status of organism responses can be carried out using...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish

Citation: Dara, M., Carbonara, P., La Corte, C. et al. 2023. Fish welfare in aquaculture: Physiological and immunological activities for diets, social and spatial stress on mediterranean aqua cultured species. Fishes 8(8), 414.

Dolphin welfare assessment under professional care: ‘Willingness to Participate’, an indicator significantly associated with six potential ‘alerting factors

In dolphinaria, dolphins and their trainers build relationships and bonds due to the nature, closeness and repeatability of their interactions, hence training sessions are deemed appropriate to evaluate dolphin welfare. Qualitative Behavioural Assessments (QBAs) have been used to study human–animal...

Year Published: 2020Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Marine Mammal

Citation: Delfour, F., Monreal-Pawlowsky, T., Vaicekauskaite, R. et al. 2020. Dolphin welfare assessment under professional care: ‘Willingness to Participate', an indicator significantly associated with six potential ‘alerting factors.' Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 1(1), 42–60.

Evaluating the accuracy of facial expressions as emotion indicators across contexts in dogs

Facial expressions potentially serve as indicators of animal emotions if they are consistently present across situations that (likely) elicit the same emotional state. In a previous study, we used the Dog Facial Action Coding System (DogFACS) to identify facial expressions...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Dog

Citation: Bremhorst, A., Mills, D. S., Würbel, H. et al. 2022. Evaluating the accuracy of facial expressions as emotion indicators across contexts in dogs. Animal Cognition 25(1), 121–136.

Stereotyping starlings are more ‘pessimistic

Negative affect in humans and animals is known to cause individuals to interpret ambiguous stimuli pessimistically, a phenomenon termed ‘cognitive bias'. Here, we used captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to test the hypothesis that a reduction in environmental conditions, from...

Year Published: 2010Topics: Abnormal/Problematic Behavior, Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Bird, Other Bird

Citation: Brilot, B. O., Asher, L., Bateson, M. 2010. Stereotyping starlings are more ‘pessimistic.' Animal Cognition 13(5), 721–731.

A promising novel judgement bias test to evaluate affective states in dogs (Canis familiaris)

The judgement bias test represents one of the most applied tools to evaluate animals' optimistic/pessimistic attitude and to infer their emotional and welfare state accordingly. The judgement bias test (JBT) has been used several times with dogs (Canis familiaris), in...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Dog

Citation: Burani, C., Pelosi, A., Valsecchi, P. 2022. A promising novel judgement bias test to evaluate affective states in dogs (Canis familiaris). Animal Cognition 25(4), 837–852.

Unexpected appetitive events promote positive affective state in juvenile European sea bass

Some animal species exhibit considerable physiological and behavioural alterations in response to captivity. It has been hypothesized, but rarely tested, that such changes reflect a negative affective state that is associated to this specific context. In the last years, judgement...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish

Citation: Alvarado, M. V., Felip, A., Espigares, F. et al. 2023. Unexpected appetitive events promote positive affective state in juvenile European sea bass. Scientific Reports 13(1), 22064.