05:35
Summarises animal welfare concerns associated with the farming of dairy and beef cattle, and veal and bobby calves. These includes problems associated with genetic selection for very high milk productivity, and painful husbandry procedures.
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
05:35
Billions of pigs are slaughtered for food annually, and high concentration CO2 within controlled atmospheric stunning (CAS) systems is one of the most common methods used to stun pigs unconscious at the time of slaughter. However, a high concentration of CO2 is aversive, and creates severe animal welfare problems for pigs. Numerous alternative stunning methods have been proposed, including iner...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
01:39
Summarises the animal welfare problems experienced by sow confined within farrowing crates. Introduces my 2018 report 'Uncaging New Zealand's Sows: Scrutinising New Zealand’s Farrowing Crates': http://www.andrewknight.info/reports/...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
05:34
Summarises animal welfare concerns associated with the farming of pigs. These include spatial and social restriction within barren environments, preventing the fulfilment of many natural behaviours pigs are highly motivated to perform, such as nest building. Painful husbandry procedures without adequate painkillers are another important welfare concern.
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
01:49:50
Our A-Law Edinburgh Student Chapter held an event on May 24th, titled 'UK Chicken Welfare: What should we know? What do we need to consider?' The event featured speakers Professor Andrew Knight and Danielle Duffield, discussing chicken welfare and the current legal framework governing their protection.
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
04:35
Chickens may be the third most common pet in many countries; however, little is known about their welfare status or the human–chicken relationship. Hence, using 2000+ questionnaire responses, this study collected the most comprehensive and holistic dataset to date on owners’ care-taking practices, owners’ attitudes towards chickens, the human–chicken relationship, and challenges regarding chick...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
04:29
Most new and emerging human diseases come from animal populations, and among these, viruses - especially influenza viruses - are the most dangerous. Viral transmission and mortality can be very high. Influenza pandemics have previously killed many millions of people. Pigs and poultry are readily infected and can transmit disease to people. Intensive pig and poultry farms include large animal gr...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
05:35
A quick introduction to our report examining the animal welfare problems and disease risks created by intensive meat chicken farming, including the risks of future global pandemics. It also highlights action supermarkets can take to address these risks.
The full report is: Open Cages, Knight A and Wiebers D (2020). A British Pandemic: the Cruelty and Danger of Supermarket Chicken. UK: Open Ca...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
04:12
Over 70 billion chickens are slaughtered globally each year. Almost all are meat breeds, typically housed in very large barns with a litter floor. Recently however, modern cage systems have been developed which provide very limited space and stack several tiers high. There is debate about the impacts of such modern cage systems on chicken welfare. Accordingly, we systematically reviewed studies...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
05:27
Summarises animal welfare concerns associated with the production of eggs, ‘meat’ chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and other poultry, including spatial and behavioural restrictions, and painful husbandry procedures.
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
04:43
Governmental and industry representatives have repeatedly claimed that Aotearoa New Zealand leads the world on animal welfare. Unfortunately, however, it is clear that substantial welfare problems remain prevalent within the farming of all main species within New Zealand. My article at https://rebrand.ly/2020/AW-in-NZ (also at https://AndrewKnight.info) and summarised here, also provides recomm...
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025
05:02
Describes the origins of intensive animal farming, and the animal welfare harms and benefits this incurs. These include severe spatial and behavioural restrictions, widespread antibiotic use, and the subsequent development of antibiotic resistance.
Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2025