Cow comfort, behavior and welfare with specific reference to dairy cattle: A review
Published in 2024
Review on optimizing dairy cow comfort
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Bovines
Discipline: Veterinary
Surgical castration of piglets - challenges and alternatives - a review
Published in 2025
Summary of the issues surrounding the castration of pigs. The European Declaration of 2010 was intended to achieve a ban on the practice by 2018, but several Member States have expressed their disagreement. `The alternatives (immunocastration, whole-male rearing) are worrying for consumers and producers alike. Despite the progress that has been made, the total abandonment of castration may not occur, due to practical, economic and behavioral constraints.
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Porcines
Assemblée nationale : réponse à la question n°4154 : Contrôle des conditions d’abattage des animaux dans les abattoirs
Published in 2025
Answer from the French Government to a question from a member of the National Assembly on abattoir monitoring and controls. The Ministry states that the work to control slaughtering conditions by government-appointed agents amounts to the equivalent of more than 1,200 full-time posts. Additionally, a national inspection force is brought in for complex cases, which can impose sanctions up to and including closure in the event of serious failings.
Document types: Regulation/Certification
Animal categories: Bovines, Caprines, Equines, Ovines, Porcines, Poultry
Characterisation of facial expressions and behaviours of horses in response to positive and negative emotional anticipation using network analysis
Published in 2025
Study using network analysis to identify specific behaviors and facial expressions in horses based on their anticipation of a positive or negative experience. These indicators can be used to better assess the emotional state and welfare of equines.
Document Types: Scientific paper
Animal categories: Equines
Measuring minds: Understanding the mental states of dairy cattle in different management conditions
Published in 2025
Review of a symposium on the assessment of how the mental states of dairy cattle (positive emotions and cognitive functions in particular) are affected by management practices. It highlights the behavioral, physiological and cognitive indicators available and the potential of emerging automated on-farm monitoring technologies.
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Bovines
Healthy cows, happy farmers? Exploring the dynamics of mastitis and farmer well-being
Published in 2025
Study showing that cow health influences the psychological welfare of dairy farmers. This connection is reinforced by the farmers' perceptions of the disease (in this case mastitis) and their sense of control over it.
Document Types: Scientific paper
Animal categories: Bovines
Animal welfare definitions, frameworks, and assessment tools: Advancing the measurement and laying the foundation for improved animal welfare through a three-step approach
Published in 2025
This overview summarizes the three steps involved in developing animal welfare assessment tools: arriving at a shared definition of welfare, establishing theoretical and ethical frameworks, and designing validated tools.
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: All animals
Assemblée nationale : Réponse à la question n°126 : Budget alloué aux associations pour la stérilisation des chats errants
Published in 2025
Question from a French Deputy to the government on how the law on stray cats should be implemented and what local councillors need to do to gain access to the funding earmarked to deal with the problem of stray cats, in particular through sterilization.
Document types: Regulation/Certification
Animal categories: Felines
Using deep learning models to decode emotional states in horses
Published in 2025
Study using machine learning models to predict the emotions of ridden horses on the basis of image analysis, comparing different cropping and training methods for convolutional neural network models. The results showed that cropped images of heads were sufficient to provide very good prediction levels (87% accuracy), and that the features used by the model for interpretation were similar to those used by experts.
Document Types: Scientific paper
Animal categories: Equines
Final report - EFTA Surveillance Authority's follow-up audit to Norway from 20 to 24 January 2025 on protection of laying hens and chickens kept for meat production
Published in 2025
Audit report carried out by the AES in January 2025 in Norway, revealing some progress for the welfare of laying hens, but a continued lack of official controls for broilers. The AES points out that, despite some remedial actions, Norway has yet to fully integrate these measures into its on-site compliance inspections.
Document types: Regulation/Certification
Animal categories: Poultry
