Animal welfare assessment has been based on the five freedoms1 concept. This considered negative aspects of mental state (fear and stress) and the compromise of physical domains (nutrition, environment, health, behavior), but did not take into account any positive states [1]. Positive welfare has been gaining importance in science [2,3,4] and among public opinion in the past years [5]. As a result, the five freedoms definition started to change and included positive experiences or emotions such as satiety, vitality, reward, contentment, curiosity and playfulness as part of animal welfare [1].
As public concern about animal welfare has increased in the last few years [5,6,7,8], NGOs in USA have started to increase their interest in the inclusion
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well fed, safe and healthy)’.
The last criterion might be the reason why NGOs are interested in promoting play behavior as an indicator of positive welfare. Play behavior is more likely to be expressed when animals are healthy and well-fed, and less likely when they are subjected to stressful conditions [9,10]. For instance, play behavior is observed less in malnourished piglets [11,12] and also in bad weather conditions [13]. Play behavior may indicate a state of good welfare, because once the primary needs of the animals are satisfied, the motivation for playing might be higher.
In order to state that play behavior is a good indicator of positive animal welfare the relationship between both has to be robust, behavior assessment has to be practically feasible and wider societal reasons for using play behavior to indicate and promote positive welfare have to be compelling. These criteria are discussed in the following paragraphs and scored in Table
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It is practically feasible to introduce the scoring of play behavior into welfare assessment schemes.
It is clear that the introduction of play behavior into animal welfare assessment schemes is practically feasible only if play markers are known and are easy to be differentiated from other type of behavior, if type and frequency of play behavior is equal among different production stages, and if play behavior assessment is easy to be learnt by inexperienced observers and is a reliable method. This statements and the given scores (Table 1) are discussed briefly in terms of pig behavior in the following paragraphs.
The main play markers in pigs are hop, scamper, pivot, toss head, shake object and carry object as described by Newberry et al. [13], and it extends across all play behaviour categories, namely locomotor, social and object behavior [12,13]. However play behavior and markers are relatively easy to be recognized [14], sometimes it might be difficult to tell the difference between to play behavior, such as playful and mild fight [13].
Play behavior is more frequent and more likely to be observed in piglets between two and six weeks old and then it starts to decline [12,13]. Hence, play might be less present in
Deborah L. Duffy, Yuying Hsu, James A. Serpell ,Applied Animal Behavior Science - 1 December 2008 (Vol. 114, Issue 3, Pages 441-460, DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2008.04.006)
Stuart Brown’s book Play describes noteworthy of play in the lives of animals and humans and how free play develops the social skills in children that are necessary for creative thinking later in life. He used his observations of animals in play to explain the role of play in brain development and social integration.
Ray, D., Bratton, S., Rhine, T., & Jones, L. (2001). The effectiveness of play therapy:
Ginsburg, K. R. (2006). "The Species of the World. " The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent–Child Bonds. USA: American Academy of Pediatrics.
An Ethogram was developed in order to define the goats behaviours being seen and provide clarity and understanding for both the observers and readers. The ethogram was created with six categories: Feeding, locomotion, aggression, resting, inactive and waste elimination. The ethogram also allowed for consistency and accuracy throughout the data collection/sampling. An I-phone was used to take photos of the goats performing each behaviour in the Ethogram to provide further clarity as to what each behaviour category represented and was
... play has a strong impact on a child’s emotional development as well (Hjelmstedt & Collins, 2008).
In one of the latest studies in this field, Pivarnik and colleagues found that middle-school pupils who had done best on fitness quizzes (which gauged aerobic capacity, strength, fortitude, flexibility and body composition) performed better intellectually, as well. A growing figure of an investigation, including a 2009 study of 11,000 third graders published in Pediatrics, expressed that by adding extra play to the day, not less, improves the possibility of better test scores and behavior. Research in Australia involving more than 12,000 high school students stated that, when it came to internet usage, surprisingly pupils who regularly played online video competitions scored higher in math’s, reading, and science exams than their peers who didn't. Play is important to child development. Play is good for a youngster’s brain, community skills, and grades. Play helps young persons and is understood to help with the need to build verbal and common-sense skills and additionally learning consideration for others. The varied purposes of the studies helped me to gain a more complete understanding of the functions of play in the child care setting, and emphasize the importance of play for children’s intellectual, emotional and social growth. Moreover, to analyze data of growth and of cognitive theories pertaining to play and beat
They have a very large well developed brain. Farm animals, including pigs, are inadvertently exposed to many learning and memory challenges (Held et al. 2002), and knowledge of species-specific learning abilities and environmental preferences is expected to contribute to improvement of housing conditions, management, and handling routines, and hence animal welfare (Baldwin and Meese 1977). With this in mind we must provide this species with cognitive thinking enrichment. When we provide them with challenging enrichment then we also increase our animal welfare for that animal. The task should allow a detailed analysis of pigs’ behavior, i.e., it should preferentially provide indices for different behavioral domains (cognitive, sensory, motor, or motivational components) (Wainwright and Colombo 2006). So enrichment ideas that have been put in place to meet these needs are having pigs search for treats in a swimming pool filled with sand, handing fruit up for them to eat and having them root at a PVC roller to get treats. There are many more enrichments that are being made for this species the more we study and learn about
cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being. It is through play that parents can learn to
Free play is essential for a child’s emotional development and studies have shown that, without it, children become prone to develop anxiety, depression and other mental health disorders.
Once the data was collected, the researchers conducted various statistical test to determine how the behaviors differed with each individual variable. They found that full body stereotypical behaviors and locomotor stereotypical behaviors were respectively the first and second most prevalent and frequently preformed forms of stereotypical behaviors. They also found that both the amount of time each elephant spent housed alone or indoors and the number of social groups that each elephant was a member of increased the odds that the elephant developed a locomotor behavior, a behavior involving movement, increased as well. They concluded that the amount of time spent alone and the number of social groups an elephant was a member of likely influenced the odds of developing a locomotor stereotypical behavior in elephants because of frustration from not being able to control their own social interactions or from the anticipation of positive events. They also concluded that the amount of time housed inside likely influenced the development of locomotor stereotypical behaviors because indoor environments are less complex and less
The children are put through different learning experiences and tasks, for the professionals to evaluate and observe their different development stages. All this helps to understand the children’s adult characteristics for future life as every child’s play experiences are crucial to their adult life.
Introduction Play is recognized as a central occupation for children and is fundamental to their social, emotional, cognitive and physical development (Cooper, 2000; Milteer et al., 2012; Waldman-Levi & Bundy, 2016). Outdoor free play promotes increased development of adaptive behaviours, decision-making skills, social competence, as well as combats issues of increasing rates of childhood obesity in children (Clements, 2004). For the purpose of this paper, outdoor free play is defined as an unscheduled, spontaneous, and pleasurable activity directed by the participants in an outdoor environment (Gray, 2011; Chudacoff, 2007; Missiuna & Pollock, 1991). A child’s ability to participate in an occupation is dependent on multiple factors that determine
Towards animal welfare comes the aspect of animal cruelty. Animal cruelty is a fairly recent subject that has affected society. Animal cruelty has now shown comparisons through human abused households. The concern is recent because as society changes humans attitudes change which now affects towards animals. Animal welfare is used to help animal cruelty, because decreasing the violence between animals and humans can help the regulations of animal welfare. Research and testing have become more prominent and a strong concern to the public on the treatment on animals. Many activists today are trying to change the view people see toward the animal they have as a companion. Ethical issues are the many concerns about animals and the question always asked is,”who has the right to control the animal?”
People believe that playing only give pleasure the children, and therefore, have always define playing as any activity that children indulge into to give them pleasure. However, this is not the case and the definition can be termed as very inaccurate according to Vygotsky, even though it has been the common belief and almost every human being associate playing with pleasure. Vygotsky explained that there are much more activities that can pleasurable to the children more that playing and therefore, the children would prefer to indulge in those activities that playing giving and example with suckling a pacifier. Secondly, there games that children play whose activities has less pleasure or does not provide pleasure to the children at all, and there are others that have two sided outcomes and only one of the sides is pleasurable. In these games when the children indulge in them and get the unpleasant result it cannot be said that the game was played without pleasure (Jones, & Reynolds, 1992). Owing to the reasons mentioned above it cannot be said that children play for pleasure but there are some hidden reason that compel them to play even though the games are not