Animal welfare science is moving beyond measuring absence of suffering toward assessing positive welfare states including play, exploration, and positive affect.
Traditional welfare assessment focused on identifying and reducing negative states - pain, fear, frustration. The positive welfare framework asks the additional question: are animals experiencing sufficient positive states to constitute good welfare rather than merely neutral welfare? Farms that incorporate positive welfare indicators into monitoring detect improvements earlier and develop richer understanding of their animals' experience. Consumers and certification bodies increasingly recognise that the target should be animals that genuinely flourish, not merely animals that are not obviously suffering.