Question: What do you mean when you say animal welfare?

Joanna Cruden answered on 15 Jun 2012:

The dictionary meaning of welfare is Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being. When we talk about it for animals we are trying to meet their needs in terms of health security and well-being. Part of this includes trying to find different ways to keep them and give them the best environment that helps them to carry out a wide range of skills, like for rats it may be giving them something to gnaw and tunnels to crawl through and nest boxes to sleep in,

For rabbits it may be something to hop on so they can get higher group to look for predators, boxes to hide in and toys to play with, and for other animals social contact with each other like rats whereas other animals may just want to see each other but not have any real social contact, rabbits like to have lots of space whereas rats like to be with other rats and bunch up together.

If you go to a pet shop you will see that rats are huddled together whereas the rabbits are more likely to have a foot or two of space away from each other. So when I talk about welfare I am talking about meeting the needs of the animal to give them health, happiness and well-being, I won’t say happiness as this is a work one can debate for animals!