Stakeholder attitudes toward farm animal welfare
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| Category | Journal Articles |
|---|---|
| Abstract |
We developed a survey to measure attitudes toward farm animal welfare, then targeted two US groups considered highly influential in this area: veterinary college faculty members with large animal/food animal emphasis (VCF) and animal science faculty members (ANS). The survey was conducted via e-mail. E-mail addresses were gathered from 58 animal science departments and 27 veterinary college websites. Our respondents consisted of 446 ANS and 157 VCF In general, VCF had more empathetic attitudes toward farm animal welfare than did ANS. Both groups expressed greater comfort with the current production systems for beef and sheep than for meat birds and layers; dairy and swine were viewed intermediately. When asked about 15 specific husbandry practices/outcomes, more than 80% of our respondents agreed that three of these issues were concerns - flooring effects on lameness in intensively farmed animals, levels of lameness in dairy cattle, and poor/indifferent stockmanship. Four issues had less than 50% agreement - early weaning in pigs, lack of foraging substrate for pigs, beak trimming in poultry and toe trimming in poultry. Several background variables showed significant relationships with our summed attitude scale scores: females were more concerned about farm animal welfare than were males (p |
| Publication Title | Anthrozoos |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 290-307 |
| ISBN/ISSN | 0892-7936 |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Journals (formerly Berg Journals) |
| DOI | 10.2752/089279306785415439 |
| Language | English |
| Author Address | Animal Behavior and Welfare Group, Department of Animal Science, Anthony Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.Heleski@msu.edu |
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