A Framework to Assess the Impact of New Animal Management Technologies on Welfare: A Case Study of Virtual Fencing

To be ethically acceptable, new husbandry technologies and livestock management systems must maintain or improve animal welfare. To achieve this goal, the design and implementation of new technologies need to harness and complement the learning abilities of animals. Here, from literature on the cognitive activation theory of stress (CATS) we develop a framework to assess welfare outcomes in terms of the animal’s affective state and its learned...