Observations made on several hundred farms, ranches, feedlots, and slaughter plants indicates that the single most important factor which affects animal welfare is the attitude of management. Places that have good animal welfare have a manager who cares about welfare. Places where animal welfare is poor often have a manager who does not care. A good manager enforces standards to maintain good welfare. Employees are well trained and people who abuse animals are punished. I have observed that the most effective manager is involved enough in day to day operations to care but he or she is not so involved that they become numb and desensitized to animal suffering. People who handle hundreds of animals each day can become desensitized. They need a strong manager to serve as their conscience.

Heart Complications - Congestive heart failure in fed feedlot cattle
A Practical Approach to Providing Environmental Enrichment to Pigs and Broiler Chickens Housed in Intensive Systems
Cattle and Pigs Are Easy to Move and Handle Will Have Less Preslaughter Stress
Practical application of the five domains of animal welfare framework for supply food animal chain managers
Grazing cattle, sheep, and goats are important parts of a sustainable agricultural future
How to Make Constructive Changes in Big Corporations
Crossing the divide between academic research and practical application of ethology and animal behavior information on commercial livestock and poultry farms
Principles of Commercial Supply Chain Managers of Livestock and Poultry
The Battle to do Good: Inside McDonald's Sustainability Journey
Why do Welfare Problems Persist?
Transport Fitness of Cull Sows and Boars: A Comparison of Different Guidelines on Fitness for Transport
Compliance of large feedyards in the northern high plains with the Beef Quality Assurance Feedyard Assessment
Animal Welfare and Society's concerns: Finding the Missing Link
List of references related to welfare issues with beta-agonists
Transferring results of behavioral research to industry to improve animal welfare on the farm ranch and in the slaughter plant
A Hog Slaughter Commentary
Avoid Being Abstract When Making Policies on the Welfare of Animals
The Effect of Economics on the Welfare of Cattle, Pigs, Sheep, and Poultry
Do Animals and People with Autism Have True Consciousness?
Reply to the Paper by Stan Curtis on Animal State of Being and Welfare
Problems with Handling and Transporting newborn calves
Animals are not Things
Tips on How to Make Group Sow Housing Successful
Distress in Animals: Is it Fear, Pain, or Physical Distress?
Welfare in Slaughter Plants Improves
Dr.Grandin comments on Specific Animal Welfare Issues
Animal Welfare Is a Public Concern
Economic Advantages of Good Animal Welfare
There are Five Basic Welfare Problems in Slaughter Plants
How to Prevent Animals From Becoming Crippled or Non-ambulatory.
Animal Welfare in Slaughter Plants (research paper)
Electro-immobilization is not a Humane Method of Restraint
Swine Genetics
Effect of Rearing Environment and Environmental Enrichment on the Behavior and Neural Development of Young Pigs.
Genetics and Animal Welfare.
Corporations can be Agents of Great Improvements in Animal Welfare and Food Safety and the need for Minimum Decent Standards.
Importance of Genetics in Sow Group Housing

AnimalHandling.Org: Information on Humane Slaughter
Welfare quality European scoring system
European on farm animal welfare assessment
United Kingdom animal welfare codes
Laying hen welfare assessment
Animal Welfare Information Center: This is the United States Department of Agriculture website. It contains the Agricultural Research Service and the National Agricultural Library
The National Cattleman's Beef Association: This website contains information on many subjects and links to other internet resources
The National Pork Board: This website contains just about everything there is to know about pigs and pork, from industry news and education to recipes
Meat & Poultry: The Business Journal of the Meat and Poultry Industry
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection's Service.
Food Saftey Inspection Service (FSIS): Humane slaughter and food safety regulations
New Scientist: A great general interest science magazine with articles about animals
WorldWideScience.Org: Access government databases in many countries for scientific information
Science Direct: Access scientific literature and journals
Pub-Med: Database of National Library of Medicine with access to veterinary literature
Lists codes of Practice in the United Kingdom and Animal Welfare Research
Lists Table of Contents of Applied Animal Behaviour Science with many articles on welfare
National Institute for Animal Agriculture (LCI): Educational materials on animal handling and prevention of disease
Information on U.S. animal welfare legislation
American Society of Animal Science: Index of articles published in the Journal of Animal Science
American Dairy Science Association: Index of articles published in the Journal of Dairy Science
OIE World Organization for Animal Health: Transport, health, and humane slaughter
Universities Federation for Animal Welfare: Abstracts of articles in the journal Animal Welfare
Animal Behavior Society
Website of the National Institute of Animal Agriculture: Contains information on handling and disease prevention
American Association of Bovine Practitioners: Contains euthenasia guidelines
American Association of Swine Practitioners (Veterinarians)
Alberta Farm Animal Care Association
Beef Magazine: Lots of cattle information
National Hog Farmer Magazine: Lots of Swine information
Science News website: The news magazine of science with easy to read articles about scientific research in all fields
Alberta Government Agriculture, Food, and Rural Development: Source of lots of information
International Society of Applied Ethology: Many researches in animal behavior belong to this society
Prairie Swine Center in Canada: Research studies on swine behavior
Purdue Center for Food animal well-being: Links to journals and animal behavior research
Western College of Veterinary Medicine Saskatchewan: Site by Joe Stookey with lots of behavior information and links
Association for the Study of Animal Behavior: Links to animal behavior societies
Animal Transportation Association: Information on livestock transport
Bud Williams Website on Low Stress Cattle Handling
National Bison Association: Information and links on the bison industry
Drover's Journal: Lots of links and articles about livestock
Stockman Grass Farmer: Magazine with lots of information on raising livestock on grass
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy: Dedicated to preserving rare heritage breeds of livestock
Canadian Organic Association: Information on organic beef and livestock
National Organic Program: USDA site on the organic program
National Sustainable Agricultre Information Service: Articles on grazing and organic farming
Soil Association: United Kingdom site on organic farming
Google Scholar: Searches scientific databases

More great links in the Animal Behavior Section

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