A higher level of animal welfare makes people and animals safer.

Now when it comes to animal welfare, it is often misunderstood by many people. There are mainly the following arguments: human animal welfare has not been solved, so why mention animal welfare? Livestock production is commodity production, which pays attention to economic benefits and has nothing to do with animal welfare. It is necessary to increase the cost to improve the level of animal welfare, which enterprises cannot afford. If animals are released in free style, the welfare problem will be solved?

To answer the above questions, it is necessary to understand the relationship between animal welfare and veterinary public health.

Farm Animal Welfare and Veterinary Public Health

In 1999, WHO proposed that veterinary public health refers to all activities that serve human physical and mental health and social well-being through the mastery and application of veterinary scientific knowledge and skills. According to Academician Liu Xiufan's interpretation of the important components of the public health system, its core areas include the prevention and control of zoonosis, the hygiene of experimental animal facilities and diagnostic laboratories, and the production and supervision of biological products and medical supplies. One of the most important areas of animal welfare is the prevention and control of zoonosis and food safety.

Since the 1960s to 1970s, more than 100 kinds of epidemic diseases have been found all over the world, and many new human infectious diseases are closely related to animals. Dr. B.Vallat, Director-General of the World Organization for Animal Health, pointed out in 2004 that we are now living and working in an era of unprecedented emerging infectious diseases, an era in which zoonotic pathogens play a leading role. According to Zhang Zhongqiu, director of the Veterinary Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, 60% of the 1461 human infectious diseases come from animals; 80% of the infectious diseases that have caused catastrophic losses to humans in history are zoonotic; and 75% of the new infectious diseases in the world in the past 20 years are caused by animals. at present, 17 million people worldwide still die from infectious diseases every year, a large part of which are zoonotic diseases.

A series of safety incidents of animal products have given rise to several questions that we must consider in the current transition period of animal husbandry: why is it that the equipment of China's animal vaccine enterprises is getting better and better, the technology is more and more advanced, and there are more and more kinds of vaccines? but there are more and more animal infectious diseases. Does the virus mutate more and more frequently? Why is it that the scale of our farms is getting larger and larger, the degree of automation is getting higher and higher, the breeding equipment is getting better and better, and the supervision is getting stronger and stronger, but the amount of drugs used by animals is more and more? The losses caused by animal diseases remain high?

Political and commercial factors aside, the most fundamental thing is that there is something wrong with our livestock production system, resulting in a decline in the immunity of the animals themselves. Modern breeding methods and breeding models excessively pursue the growth rate and production performance of animals, ignoring the resistance of animals themselves, making livestock and poultry susceptible to diseases, and have to increase the practicality of veterinary drugs and vaccines, resulting in the imbalance of animal bodies. the imbalance in nature leads to the acceleration of virus mutation and recombination. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to have a new understanding of the prevention and control of animal diseases: it is better to cure the symptoms than to get to the root of the problem, "the combination of raising and prevention, giving priority to raising". It has been recognized by more and more people to reduce the occurrence of animal diseases by improving the level of feeding and management. improving the level of farm animal welfare is the fundamental way to solve zoonosis and animal food safety.

What is animal welfare? According to the interpretation of farm animal welfare by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), that is, the five principles of freedom of animals: freedom from hunger and thirst (breeding); freedom to live comfortably (environment); freedom to express nature (environment); freedom from pain and disease (epidemic prevention and control); freedom to live without fear and sadness (transport, slaughtering). That is, farm animal welfare = good feeding and management + scientific and effective disease prevention and control + humane transportation and slaughtering is not to give animals additional care and protection.

The practice of animal welfare reflects and reforms the current mode of animal production from a "humane" point of view, so as to provide animals with suitable living conditions and facilities. Respect and meet the basic physiological, psychological and behavioral needs of animals in accordance with the laws of nature, be kind to animals, reduce diseases, and realize the health and happiness of animals. Follow the ACE principle, that is, all animal production and animal products must be beneficial to animals (Animal), consumers (Consumers) and environment (Evironment).

Improving Animal Welfare is the only way of intensive farming

Modern intensive farming leads to poor animal welfare, which in turn reduces the immunity of animals. Breeders have to control diseases by abusing drugs and vaccines, resulting in many problems such as drug residues, poor product quality, environmental pollution and so on. Welfare breeding is to improve the level of animal welfare by giving animals "five freedoms", to enhance their own immunity, to use less or no medicine, less or no vaccination, to protect healthy animals, and to carry out humane transportation and slaughtering. finally achieve product safety.

How to realize the "five freedoms" principle of farm animals? We should start from the following aspects. The first is disease prevention and control. Purification of breeding livestock and poultry farms-disease-free at source; optimization of immune procedures, determination of the type, time and frequency of vaccine use on the basis of serological testing; avoidance of blind and overuse; timely and effective treatment, care, isolation and culling of diseased livestock and poultry, use as few drugs as possible, reduce the types of veterinary drugs, and develop and apply new special veterinary drugs. Second, environmental control to provide a comfortable environment. Provide welfare facilities and equipment, provide necessary activity space, improve living conditions, provide appropriate temperature, humidity, air and light, and welfare alternatives to traditional technologies such as tail removal and beak cutting; harmless treatment of sick and dead livestock and poultry carcasses and animal wastes. Third, nutrition regulation. Allocate nutritionally balanced diets; appropriately add feed additives that can improve animal immunity; prohibit prohibited drugs, be cautious in the use of preventive drugs and growth promoters; ensure the quality of drinking water; optimize dietary structure and improve the "quality" of excreta to reduce environmental pollution. Fourth, humane transport and slaughtering to reduce animal fear and fear.

Some opinions on Animal Welfare

There are many factors that affect animal welfare, and there are contradictions among many factors. The key is balance, and knowledge lies in trade-offs. The level of animal welfare is the result of the joint application of many factors, so it is not necessary to pursue a single factor unilaterally or deliberately pursue the single aspect of "five freedoms". The purpose should be clear and the level of welfare should be considered comprehensively. Animal welfare is an inevitable requirement for the development of productive forces to a certain extent, which is closely related to the level of economic development, technological level, religion and culture. There are many new ideas and technologies in foreign countries, which should be carefully analyzed, adjust measures to local conditions, seek truth from facts, absorb them scientifically, and avoid following blindly.

The animal welfare we advocate is commercial production under the large-scale breeding mode, providing comfortable living conditions and feeding and management conditions for farm animals as far as possible, meeting their physical and mental needs, growing healthily and happily (being slaughtered), raising healthy animals and ensuring product safety. Large-scale free breeding is not suitable for China's national conditions.

OIE emphasizes the important relationship between animal diseases, veterinary public health safety, animal welfare and food safety. OIE brings animal welfare into the scope of veterinary work. The animal welfare content of the Land Animal Health Code is the common standards and guidelines followed by the member states. OIE is formulating the sixth strategic plan from 2016 to 2020: ensuring the hygiene and safety of animals and animal products and food of animal origin, and protecting animal welfare.

Animal welfare is only a concept, not out of reach. It is necessary to correctly understand and interpret the connotation and essence of animal welfare, and give correct publicity and guidance. Animal welfare is not difficult to do. You do animal welfare every day. The key to animal welfare is scientific balance and reasonable trade-off. For the sake of veterinary public health, for the safety of animal products and for human health, please be kind to animals, improve animal welfare and raise healthy animals. The essence of improving animal welfare is to improve human welfare.