Episode 190: Dr Michaela Hempen Pt 1: Assessing Animal Welfare

We are joined again by Dr. Michaela Hempen, but this time, Michaela is not talking about Blondie and the cribbing project, but about her day job. Michaela works for the European Food Safety Agency. The EFSA looks at anything related to food safety, including animal health. It provides risk assessments which give the European Commission or European member states the scientific basis for legislation. The European Commission will be revising all farm animal welfare legislation, and part of this will be based on scientific assessments of their welfare. Michaela has become involved in this project which means she has been on a steep learning curve to familiarize herself with the field of animal welfare. In this podcast we talk about preference tests. Whether it’s a laying hen or a horse how do you measure what animals want? For a list of the references Michaela refers to in the podcast go to the show notes at equiosity.com.