Animal Welfare Hub: 2,850 Pages — Growing Coverage

2,850 Pages: Deepening the Knowledge Base

The Animal Welfare Hub has reached 2,850 pages of evidence-based animal welfare information. Each page represents our commitment to making welfare science accessible to everyone who cares about animals — from farmers and veterinarians to companion animal owners, wildlife enthusiasts, researchers, and policymakers.

What Makes This Resource Different

The Animal Welfare Hub is built around several principles that distinguish it from general animal care information:

• Evidence-based: Every page draws on peer-reviewed research, validated assessment tools, and expert consensus rather than anecdote or tradition
• Welfare-centred: We start from the animal's perspective — what does this animal need to experience good welfare? — rather than from production efficiency or human convenience
• Practical: Understanding welfare science only has value if it translates into actionable improvements. Every page includes practical guidance alongside scientific background
• Comprehensive: We cover not just domestic animals but wildlife, farmed fish, and aquaculture species whose welfare is often overlooked
• Honest: We acknowledge when welfare science is incomplete, when trade-offs exist, and when current practices fall short of what animals need

New Additions Around the 2,850 Milestone

Recent pages added to the hub include:

• Broiler breeder welfare — exploring the hidden welfare challenge of parent birds in commercial poultry
• Castration in livestock — the pain science and best-practice analgesia for routine procedures
• Canine osteoarthritis — one of the most prevalent and undertreated pain conditions in companion dogs
• Net pen aquaculture welfare — welfare considerations for sea-cage salmon production
• Grey partridge conservation — a sentinel species for farmland biodiversity
• Cat pain assessment — using the Feline Grimace Scale and validated tools
• Human-animal relationships in livestock — how stockperson attitudes shape welfare outcomes

The Scale of Animal Welfare

The breadth of our coverage reflects the breadth of the welfare challenge:

• Approximately 1.6 billion cattle, 1.2 billion sheep, and 3.3 billion pigs are farmed globally
• Over 70 billion chickens are slaughtered annually for food
• More than 100 billion farmed fish are killed each year
• An estimated 15–20 billion terrestrial wild animals live within agricultural landscapes where human land management directly affects their welfare

Each one of these animals has a nervous system capable of experiencing pain, distress, and (in many species) positive states like pleasure, contentment, and social bonding. The scale of potential suffering — and the scale of potential improvement — is almost incomprehensible. Yet improvements are possible, practical, and increasingly driven by clear scientific evidence.

The Role of Knowledge

Behaviour change in animal care consistently follows a predictable path: awareness → understanding → motivation → action. The Animal Welfare Hub aims to support all four stages — providing the awareness that problems exist, the understanding of why and how to address them, and the practical tools to take action. We cannot change the world by writing pages alone — but we can contribute to the foundation of knowledge on which better decisions are built.

Browse the Full Hub

All 2,850+ pages are freely accessible from our main index. No registration, no paywalls, no limitations.