3.1 Diet Feeding Welfare.pdf

Module 13
Module 13: Diet, Feeding and Animal Welfare Concepts in Animal Welfare © 2013
Module 3: Welfare Management
Lesson 3.1: Diet, Feeding and Animal
Welfare
This lecture was first developed for WSPA by Dr David Main (University of Bristol) in
2003. It was revised by WSPA scientific advisors in 2012 using updates provided by
Dr Caroline Hewson.

Learning Outcomes
• Describe the relationship of feeding and diet to
the different aspects of animal welfare.
• Discuss how food relates to different aspects of
animal welfare that you may encounter in
veterinary practice.
• Discuss how to maximize welfare when feeding
animals.

Areas of welfare
(Welfare Quality® project)

Hunger and feeding (1)
• Hunger: a feeling à prolonged = suffering
• Hypothalamus: Appetite centre; affected by
many internal cues & external ones
Ex: inappetence à underlying condition
• In the wild, there’s variability in food availability
*herbivores & carnivores experience prolonged hunger
- Anticipation of finding food is pleasurable
(Kyriazakis & Tolkamp, 2011)

• Normal pattern of behaviour = animal
seeks out food and eats it, and periods in
between; bouts of feeding
• Amount ingested per feeding bout may vary with
genetics and environment
• Feeding patterns are independent of quality
of food or genetic traits

• Feeding behaviour
• Appetitive
• Consummatory
• “Traditional focus on
consummatory component
because this satisfies hunger”
• If appetitive component is not
satisfied this can cause
frustration ð behavioural and
physical abnormalities, e.g.
stereotypies, gastric ulceration

• Human factors (Kasanen et
al., 2010)
• Number of animals to be fed
• Time available
• Costs and benefits
- Labour, feed, financial and
non-financial value of the
animals, owner’s income
and profit margins

• Ad libitum food delivery
• Growing broilers & growing pigs
• Lab rodents (ad lib for labor efficiency)
• Can result in excess adipose tissue
- Depending on, e.g., energy density, palatability, genetics, environmental complexity
and opportunity to perform
other behaviours
• Can lead to obesity ð diabetes mellitus,
musculoskeletal disorders, reduced longevity
• Dietary restriction to limit calorie intake
• Qualitative vs Quantitative
Feeding regimens (1)
(Kasanen et al., 2010; Kyriazakis & Tolkamp, 2011)
***

• Quantitative restriction of high-quality food
Ex: done in breeding stock of pigs & broilers
• Restrict amount fed: sows and boars, fed ~75
per cent; broiler breeders, ~35 per cent;
rodents, 60-80 per cent of ad libitum intake
• Restrict time during which food is available
• Make access to food more difficult

• Quantitative restriction promotes physical
functioning but can adversely affect
feelings/mental state and performance of
important behaviours
• Feelings of hunger
• Inability to learn – broiler breeders (Buckley et al.,
2011)
• Inability to perform social behaviour –rodents
• Feelings of frustration –no food-seeking behavior
*Stopped here for the last block

• Broiler hens
• Egg limits space in abdomen
• Full gut ð vent prolapse and vent-pecking
• Sows
• Obesity à reduced fertility, joint pain,
increased risk of crushing piglets
Breeding stock of pigs and broilers

• Fed every other day or reduced amount
• Under those conditions, some sows and
caged broiler breeders show redirected or
stereotypic behaviours related to eating
• Behaviours shown as they hear noises
that signal arrival of food, and after eating.
Breeding stock of pigs and broilers

• Qualitative restriction
• Ad libitum access to low-quality food
• Effective way to prevent obesity
• Effective in ruminants – fed more forage than
concentrates
- minimises behavioural signs of distress in
ruminants
• Other species? For example, high-fibre diets
for dogs and cats

• Qualitative restriction
• Providing high-fibre diets for dogs and cats
(pigs, broilers and lab rodents)
- Unlike herbivores, hunger motivates them to
spend longer time in finding food and shorter
time eating eat à providing bulky diet may still
not adequately satisfy their motivation to find
food à strong feelings of frustration

• Forced moulting in laying hens
• Usually in hens who produce eggs for human
consumption
• Quantitative restriction at end of laying
season
- feed, water and sometimes light are
severely restricted for up to two weeks à
restored à resumes laying
- food restriction causes feather loss &
subsequent regrowth
Other feeding regimens (1)

• Metabolic hunger in high-producing dairy
cows
• Genetic selection for high production à
increased yield per lactation from ~3,000 to
18,000 litres today (Holstein and Holstein
Friesian) à ave. 50 liters per day
• On grass a cow can only eat enough to
produce 25 litres of milk each day; but
inherent metabolic drive is to produce 50l/day
à becomes hungry if cow only eats grass à
lose weight

• Metabolic hunger in high-producing dairy
cows
• To avoid cow from losing weight à needs
extra, energy-dense feed (concentrates)
• Keep inside to ensure animal eats enough
concentrated feed to high production
• Hunger vs. full gut vs. need to lie down ð
cannot consume enough to meet energy
needs

• Under-feeding à animals are thin and they are
undernourished
• Ignorance
- Lack of veterinary services
- Study in dogs in S. Africa where no vet services
indicated that many dogs were thin due to lack
of protein (Minnaar & Krecek, 2001)
- Many working equids à prolonged hunger à
poor BCS; thinner animals prone to gait
abnormalities

• Under-feeding à animals are thin and they
are undernourished
• Animal hoarding (Patronek, 1999) à
unable to feed or care for animals
• Willful cruelty (Christie et al., 2005;
Whiting et al., 2005; Benetato et al.,
2011) à refer to proper authorities

Other causes of hunger
• Parasites: cause GI disturbances; absorb
digested food/prevent absorption; thin
animals with high appetite
• Maldigestion: animals who are unable to
digest their food are hungry
• Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in dogs
• Herbivore teeth in poor condition

Other causes of hunger
• Malabsorption: animal cannot absorb the
digested food
• Inflammation; neoplasia
• Malutilisation: result of metabolic diseases
• Obesity predisposes animals to diabetes

Water and animal welfare
• Sensation of thirst: regulated
in the walls of the third
ventricle of the brain in
response to endocrine,
osmotic and neutral factors.
• Causes of thirst
• Insufficient water & water
loss

• Insufficient water: intentional
or other causes (e.g. faulty
water system)
• Lame broilers à difficulty in
reaching nipple drinkers
• Pigs à hypernatremia or
salt poisoning à death
- Consequence of water
deprivation; CNS signs

• Insufficient water:
• Veal calves (Gottardo et al., 2002; Bähler et
al., 2010) à all-milk diet
- Water reduces stereotypic oral
behaviours and fundic ulcers
• Working equids
- 40–50 per cent of 4,903 animals were
dehydrated on skin pinch
test (Pritchard et al., 2005)

• Disease / loss of body water
• Stomatitis: FMD; Feline calici
• Metabolic disease: PU/PD
• GI disease: diarrhea, vomiting
• Sweating / hot weather
- Losing of so much sodium
suppresses thirst
• Pathological thirst: ADH related
Other causes of thirst

Food and physical comfort
• Under-nourished animals
à use up more metabolic energy to maintain body
temp; à unable to maintain body temp disease;
susceptible to infection; cachexia (catabolism of skeletal muscle)
• Overweight animals
à Suffer in hot weather because fat retains heat;
role in cushioning body surface (⬆ SC fats)

Food and physical comfort
• Ease of movement
• Obesity à difficulty
supporting themselves
• Broiler chickens are
predisposed to joint &
tendon problems
• Osteoporosis in laying
hens à calcium reserves
depleted leading to weak bones
& osteoporosis
*Stopped here sa last block

• Nutritional deficiency diseases, e.g.
• Fractures caused by
- Rickets
- (Osteoporosis in laying hens)
• Taurine deficiency in cats à cardiomyopathy
à arterial thromboembolism
• Mineral deficiencies, e.g.
- Low magnesium in new grass ð tetany
- Iron-deficiency anaemia in veal calves
- Selenium or copper deficiency in local soil
Food and pain, injury and disease (1)

• Overfeeding companion animals
• E.g. Cats:
- Naturally cats have 8-16
meals/day; requires 60 kcal/BW
- Owners may not understand
what is normal bodyweight and
thus may overfeed
- Ad lib feeding à many cats eat
too much; feline obesity

• Over-feeding farmed animals,
e.g.
• Ducks, geese (EU, 1998)
- force-fed to make them
ingest an excess of
calories to induce hepatic
lipidosis à pate foie gras
• Broilers, pigs

• Over-feeding
• Fatty liver
• Laminitis
• Ruminal acidosis
• Under-feeding
• Neonates

• Gastric ulceration
• Veal calves: common post-mortem findings à
prevalent ulcers in pyloric & fundic region
- Eating roughage such as straw increases the
incidence of pyloric ulceration
- Chronic stress may cause fundic ulcers
Affected animals show oral stereotypies such
as sham-chewing, tongue-rolling or bar-biting

• Gastric ulceration
• Horse: crib biting is
associated with gastric
ulcers (seen in both
young and adults)
• Weaned onto
concentrates may
increase risk to this
behavior

• Predation
• Some captive predators may be unable to
express full range of feeding behaviour
adequately ð always distressed (Clubb &
Mason, 2002)
• Competition at feeding
• Trough space
• Quantitative dietary restriction ð aggression
Food, fear and distress

Food and behaviours that are important
to the animal
• Early weaning
• Dairy calves: early separation from dam at birth
à non-nutritive sucking (redirected behavior)*
• Piglets: weaned at 21-28 days; tail-biting
– a combination of predisposing factors, including
- A lack of manipulable material (will allow them to
exhibit appetitive feeding behavior)
- Nutritional deficiency: experiment on piglets
(showed those who bit and chewed ropes had lower growth
rates before & after weaning)

-End-
• Final Exam Coverage:
• Lesson 2.4 (Livestock welfare management: Part
1 only; PART 2 NOT INCLUDED à check
lecture materials uploaded in VSUEE)
• Lesson 3.1(Diet, feeding and welfare)
• Lesson 3.2 (Environmental Enrichment: Intro up
to Types of enrichment; check modified PPT)

3.1 Diet Feeding Welfare.pdf

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