Page 116 - The Welfare of Cattle

ChaPter 10

Breeding and Welfare: Genetic
Manipulation of Beef and Dairy Cattle

Courtney Daigle, Andy D. Herring, and Fuller W. Bazer
Texas A&M University

CONteNtS

What Is Animal Welfare? .................................................................................................................93
Implications of Genetic Selection and Biotechnology on Animal Welfare .................................95
Biotechnologies ...........................................................................................................................97
Alternative Interpretations of Biotechnologies: Exploiting the Microbiome in Cattle .............100
Public Perceptions and Ethics of Animal Biotechnology ..............................................................100
References ......................................................................................................................................104

What IS aNIMaL WeLFare?

While different sectors of society debate what constitutes good animal welfare, what really
matters in this argument is the experience of the individual animal. Humans have the capacity to
evaluate the physiology, behavior, and mental activity of animals, but we cannot truly understand
what it is like to be that animal because we are equipped with different morphology and physiol-
ogy, thus limiting our capacity to understand their perspective. This presents animal managers with
the challenge of needing to provide animals with good welfare, identifying and recording objective
metrics that ensure good welfare is being promoted, and making breeding and genetic selection
choices that enhance animal welfare, all while providing assurances to consumers that their expec-
tations regarding what is good welfare are being met.
Further complicating this scenario is that multiple—and sometimes conflicting—scientific
interpretations of animal welfare and strategies to measure animal welfare are found throughout
the scientific literature (see Fraser, 2003). As the fields of ethology and animal welfare science have
evolved over the past 60 years, so have the definitions, approaches, and relative importance of the
different components of animal welfare (Table 10.1). Furthermore, the approaches and techniques
available to measure animal welfare (e.g., productivity, motivation testing (Kirkden and Pajor,
2006), thermal imaging (Nääs et al., 2014), brain activity (Perentos et al., 2017)), and the interpreta-
tions of the scientific data collected [e.g., endocrine markers (Mormède et al., 2007)] have evolved
alongside the development of the scientific field of animal welfare science. Therefore, scientists
have a larger and more diverse arsenal of tools and data available to use as part of the multifactorial
evaluation of the animal that is required to understand welfare.

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