We identify risk factors for poor welfare in real-life contexts, particularly livestock production, and develop practical solutions for existing and emerging welfare problems.

Our research is a central component of the work of the Animal Welfare and Behaviour group. It involves using measures of animal behaviour, health and welfare to identify and prioritise animal welfare problems, and then working towards strategies for their amelioration and the promotion of good welfare. To this end, we are increasingly interested in the development of automated in situ welfare and health monitoring. Examples of the many areas in which we have worked include: skeletal resistance in laying hens, leg disorders in broilers, welfare at stunning and slaughter, tail biting in pigs, lameness in cattle, injurious pecking in laying hens, fin erosion in farmed trout, housing improvements for caged rats, mice and rabbits, and kennelled dogs, welfare during transport and handling, welfare of working equids and racing greyhounds, welfare of re-homed dogs and cats, nest use in caged laying hens, welfare of sheep on farm and in markets, rehabilitation of captive primates for reintroduction into the wild, and welfare and health assessment of neotropical mammals.

Our work thus involves collaboration with BVS researchers in Infection, Inflammation and Immunotherapy, Global Food Security, Data Analytics, and Platform Technologies. We also have collaborations with researchers within and outside the wider University as detailed below.

Ongoing work and collaborators include

• Reducing fin damage in farmed fish hatcheries (Collaborators: Jimmy Turnbull and Maureen Ellis (Stirling University), Jeff Lines (Silsoe Livestock Systems) and Tim Ellis (CEFAS, Weymouth))
• Humane and Halal compliant pre-slaughter stunning of cattle (Collaborators: Jeff Lines (Silsoe Livestock Systems), Steve Wotton (Steve Wotton Ltd.), EuroMeat Group (Belgium), AHDB – Beef and Lamb)
• Oral immunotherapy as a treatment to desensitize horses with insect bite hypersensitivity to Culicoides spp (Sweet Itch)
• Improving the reliability of commercial captive bolt devices (In collaboration with Steve Wotton (Steve Wotton Ltd.) and Bock Industries, USA