Some Words About the Reasoning Behind the Animal Welfare Institute’s Animal Welfare Approved Standards Program

The welfare of farmed animals is related to the extent to which they can adapt without suffering to environments designed by humans. Both the science and the philosophy of animal welfare recognize that animals have a mental life as well as bodily condition (health and vigor) that can be affected by how humans shelter and treat them.

The “Five Freedoms” are used to describe both the needs of domesticated animals and the duties of care owed them.  The Five Freedoms have a long history, having first been described in a scientific report to the British government in 1965 and enhanced by the Carpenter Committee in 1980.  They underlie the Animal Welfare Institute’s Animal Welfare Approved standards program, reflecting the goals that the standards strive to achieve.  They provide a useful benchmark by which farmers can evaluate the outcomes of their husbandry.

1. Freedom from hunger, thirst, and malnutrition.
2. Freedom from physical and thermal discomfort.
3. Freedom from pain, injury, and disease (including parasitical infections).
4. Freedom to express normal behavior.
5. Freedom from fear and distress.

The Five Freedoms, in turn, can be achieved by, for example:

1. providing ready access to fresh water, a diet to maintain full health and vigor (including full feed during lactation); and, in situations where animals are limit-fed grains or grain-based feeds, making edible materials such as straw or grass hay continuously available to satisfy animals’ hunger between feedings (including ‘behavioral’ hunger);
2. providing a suitable environment, including shade, shelter, and a comfortable resting area;
3. preventing and rapidly diagnosing and treating disease and injury; vaccinating where necessary; maintaining proper pasture rotations to minimize parasitical infection; immediately euthanizing animals when treatment would be ineffective or would cause an extended period of suffering (e.g., broken limbs); never transporting injured or diseased animals, or animals in a late stage of pregnancy, except to a veterinary clinic for diagnosis and treatment designed to benefit the animal (i.e., never transporting such animals to slaughter or to other destinations where the endpoint is slaughter);
4. satisfying minimal spatial and territorial requirements including a visual field, ‘personal’ space, and company of the animal’s own kind; and
5. ensuring conditions that avoid causing distress and mental suffering, through items 1-4 as well as by grouping compatible animals (e.g., to prevent bullying) and by humane handling.