![]() ![]() Public concern for animal welfare has always played a key role in the development of farm animal welfare initiatives and policy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files.įunding: The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) to conduct this research. ![]() Received: DecemAccepted: FebruPublished: March 3, 2021Ĭopyright: © 2021 Vigors et al. ![]() PLoS ONE 16(3):Įditor: Lynn Jayne Frewer, Newcastle University, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, UNITED KINGDOM In the context of public and private welfare standards seeking to meet public expectations, this study provides important insights into how public perspectives of animal welfare are more nuanced than previously thought, influenced by the context of the animal, the aspect of welfare in question and personal characteristics.Ĭitation: Vigors B, Ewing DA, Lawrence AB (2021) Happy or healthy? How members of the public prioritise farm animal health and natural behaviours. Attitudes to natural behaviours also varied more between participants, with females, individuals who do not (regularly) eat meat and those with a greater belief in animal mind giving greater priority to natural behaviours. However, findings also indicated that participants considered animal welfare to be most positive when both health issues are minimised and natural behaviours are promoted. Contrary to the predominant view, this study found animal health had the greatest effect on participants’ judgements, explaining more of the variance in their assessments of animal welfare than any other factor. low behaviour), was completed by a sample (n = 810) representative of the UK population (on age, gender, ethnicity). low health) and natural behaviour provision (high behaviour vs. ![]() To examine this, a factorial survey using vignettes, which experimentally manipulated the different levels of health (high health vs. However, public perspectives may be more multi-dimensional than is generally thought, with the importance given to these different elements of welfare dependent on the situation and state of the animals in question. It is predominantly thought that members of the public prioritise animals being able to behave naturally over other aspects of farm animal welfare, such as addressing health issues. The importance given to minimising health issues and promoting natural behaviours is a polarising issue within farm animal welfare. ![]()
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