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Overall Animal Welfare Reviewed. Part 2: Assessment Tables And Schemes, M.B.M. Bracke, J.H.M. Metz, B. M. Spruijt

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

In the scientific literature several attempts have been made to systematically assess the overall welfare-status of animals in relation to housing and management. This paper reviews assessment tables and schemes that have been constructed to this end. These tables and schemes have a tabular format that allows an assessment of housing systems using a list of welfare-relevant attributes (properties of the housing system). Rather than identifying deficits, the focus of this review is on finding positive recommendations for the purpose of developing a method for overall welfare assessment (OWA) on a scientific basis. The main recommendation is to use the …