Animal Welfare

Animal welfare refers to how well an animal is coping both with its environment and with the way it is being managed. When an animal's major needs are being met its welfare is good. There are five main areas of need. These can be broadly described as nutritional, environmental, health, behavioural and mental needs. These areas of need can guide us when we want to find out how to prevent an animal's welfare from being harmed. They show us where animal welfare problems can occur, and they help us work out how to prevent or correct those problems.

Animal welfare problems.

Five areas where animal welfare can be harmed and how welfare problems may be prevented or corrected are shown below.

Area	Description	How prevented or corrected
1.	Water shortage, food shortage, unbalanced diet	By ensuring ready access to fresh water and an appropriate diet in sufficient quantities and with a composition that maintain full health and vigour.
2.	Environmental challenge	By providing a suitable environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area, whether outdoors or indoors.
3.	Disease or injury	By prevention or by rapid diagnosis and treatment.
4.	Behavioural restriction	By providing sufficient space, proper facilities and the company of the animal’s own kind.
5.	Suffering (mental and physical)	By minimising the conditions that produce unacceptable levels of anxiety, fear, distress, boredom, sickness, pain, thirst, hunger, and the like.

Big improvements in animal welfare standards have been achieved by the application of new scientific knowledge about what animals’ needs are. In New Zealand this knowledge has been used to devise Codes of Welfare. These Codes set minimum animal welfare standards. They also describe “good practice” – the ways animals’ needs can be met so that their welfare is kept above the minimum acceptable level in the practical circumstances in which we keep and use them. In the past, and even today, preventing bad states (like undernutrition, disease or suffering) has been and is the main way of making welfare improvements. However, increasing attention is now also being given to enhancing good states as well. These good states include the pleasure, happiness and contentment that animals may experience.

Codes of Welfare

Codes of Welfare are prepared by the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and are available from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Wellington. These Codes set minimum animal welfare standards. They also describe “good practice” – the ways animals’ needs can be met so that their welfare is kept above the minimum acceptable level in the practical circumstances in which we keep and use them. By June 1999, the following Codes of Recommendations and Minimum Standards, now to be called Codes of Welfare, had been prepared. There are Codes for:

No. 1	The Welfare of Circus Animals and Information for Circus Operators.
No. 2	The Sea Transport of Sheep from New Zealand.
No. 3	The Welfare of Sheep.
No. 4	Disease or injury.
No. 5	Behavioural
No. 6	The Welfare of Animals Used in Rodeo Events.
No. 7	The Welfare of Horses.
No. 8	The Welfare of Bobby Calves.
No. 9	The Care of Animals in Boarding Establishments.
No.10	The Welfare of Animals at the Time of Slaughter at Licensed and Approved Premises
No. 11	The Sale of Companion Animals.
No. 12	The Animals Protection Act 1960 and its Implications for Those Responsible for Farm Animals
No. 13	The Welfare of Pigs.
No. 14	The Welfare of Exhibit Animals and Information for Exhibit Operators.
No. 15	The Welfare of Animals Transported within New Zealand.
No. 16	The Welfare of Animals at Saleyards.
No. 17	The Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes.
No. 18	The Welfare of Layer Hens.
No. 19	The Emergency Slaughter of Farm Livestock.
No. 20	The Welfare of Dogs.
No. 21	The Welfare of Ostrich and Emu.

The Codes are reviewed regularly to allow for new knowledge about the needs of animals, new developments in the ways we keep and use animals, and changes in our ideas about what are acceptable and unacceptable ways of keeping and using animals.