Resumo

HOTZEL, Maria José; NOGUEIRA, Selene Siqueira da Cunha  e  MACHADO FILHO, Luiz Carlos Pinheiro. Farm animal welfare: animal needs and human possibilities. Rev. etol. [online]. 2010, vol.9, n.2, pp.1-10. ISSN 1517-2805.

The huge increase in productivity in livestock production in the last 50 years, as a result of advances in health, nutrition, genetics, animal and plant and equipment, has brought unquestionable benefits to human society. However, some changes in housing, genetics and animal nutrition have led to ethical questioning, mostly of issues related to the environment, residues in food of animal origin and the quality of life of those animals involved. The pig is one of the species that have been most affected by the process of intensification of production. On the other hand, due to their high feed conversion efficiency, it is a species that tends to grow in importance, which means that there is a need to develop practices that improve the welfare of these animals. In Brazil and other Latin American countries the production of wild species is increasing due to several factors such as demand for exotic meats and leather products in different European and Asian countries. However, knowledge of wildlife under managed systems is still very poor, which leads to a tendency to adopt techniques, management, facilities and health programs developed for domestic species. As expected, in many cases this brings disastrous consequences. In this paper we discuss the welfare of some wild animals reared in Brazil and of pigs, especially regarding the possibility of improving animal welfare through environmental enrichment techniques.

Palavras-chave : Abnormal behavior; Pig (Sus scrofa); Capybara, (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris); Peccary (Pecari tajacu); Ethology; Ethics.

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