P.PSH.1232 - Development of practical measures of animal welfare
The Australian red meat industry faces an enormous risk in the form of societal concerns over animal welfare.
| Project start date: | 01 January 2020 |
| Project end date: | 15 March 2025 |
| Publication date: | 05 March 2025 |
| Project status: | In progress |
| Livestock species: | Grain-fed Cattle, Grass-fed Cattle, Sheep, Goat, Lamb |
| Relevant regions: | National |
Summary
This research program aims to develop discrete quantifiable and practical measures of animal welfare in sheep and cattle that can be applied both on farm and post farm gate. Identifying and validating biomarkers associated with reward, fear, pain and stress resilience. All of these biomarkers are measurable in blood, allowing for on-farm rapid assessment.
Objectives
The outcomes of this project will be to develop new tools and assess the welfare of individual animals in order to enable broad scale improvement of the welfare of animals in the red meat industry.
Key findings
The objectives of the project were partially achieved. The results demonstrated that five of the ten candidate indicators showed promise at differentiating between a positive and a negative welfare state in sheep. An increased concentration of IGF-1 in plasma was associated with sheep having a presumed more positive experience. An increased percentage of thiol oxidation in blood, differential expression of miRNAs in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, increased expression of NEAT1 in blood, and uniquely expressed proteins in plasma were associated with negative experience in sheep or lambs. The results from this project have contributed to the identification and validation of novel indicators of welfare and to a further understanding of the dynamics of those indicators in animals exposed to situations that affect their experience.
Benefits to industry
The ability of the red meat industry to verify animal welfare claims is essential to ensure customer satisfaction and the retention of community trust. The behavioural, physiological, and neurobiological indicators that are currently used to assess animal welfare provide important information. However, those indicators are not always specific and most focus on signs of poor welfare. Biological markers ('biomarkers') of experience and mental state that have been identified by human biomedical and neuroscience research could effectively reflect positive and negative welfare states in animals. The overall objective of this project was to evaluate such candidate indicators that respond to changes in the welfare state of an animal and potentially are indicative of both positive and negative welfare.
MLA action
When available, MLA will publish the final report from this project on the MLA R&D reports website.
Future research
Further research and technological developments are needed to facilitate the adoption of these promising indicators to assess welfare in real-time settings and at scale. The future use of these indicators could ensure that consumers and the community will be provided with a direct report of what an animal is experiencing and, therefore, position Australia as an international leader in the assessment of animal welfare.
More information
| Project manager: | Michael Laurence |
| Contact email: | reports@mla.com.au |
| Primary researcher: | University Of Queensland |
