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Veterinary care can both positively and negatively impact animal welfare in terms of behavioural welfare. This occurs both in the veterinary clinic through interactions with patients and management of their stress, fear and aggression, and in the animal’s home through the provision of behaviour and training advice for behavioural management as a whole. An animal welfare assessment scheme, incorporating management-, resource- and animal-based measures of animal welfare through interviews and appointment observations, was developed to assess practices related to behavioural welfare in small animal veterinary clinics. It was tested for reliability, validity, and feasibility in 30 companion and mixed animal veterinary clinics, and information concerning current behavioural welfare practices was also collected. Based on weighted kappa statistics, inter-observer reliability showed almost perfect agreement for interview scoring (Kw = 0.82 and 0.81) and substantial agreement for appointment observation scoring (Kw = 0.74 and 0.70); however, at the individual question and handling item level, weighted kappa statistics for inter-observer reliability ranged greatly. Interviews were more feasible to carry out than appointment observations, although discrepancies between interview responses and veterinary staff-patient interactions observed during appointments suggest that interviews might be a less valid measure. Descriptive results suggest that there is enough variability in most assessed areas to allow for differentiation between veterinary clinics on the basis of their behavioural welfare practices. Additional research is required to explore these trends in strengths and areas for improvement in a larger sample of veterinary clinics.

This study investigated whether simple, cheap enrichments – ‘get-away bunks' (a wire mesh semi-cylinder attached to the cage ceiling) and small manipulable objects (balls and suspended chewing items) – could improve welfare and productivity in nursing mink dams ( Neovison vison ) in commercial farm conditions in southern Ontario (Canada). Experiment 1 replicated a study conducted the previous whelping season on the same farm. It evaluated whether providing bunks to multiparous dams ( n =164) could decrease their morbidity and mortality or boost kit weaning weight, and assessed dams' overnight use of these structures to compare day and night utilization. Overnight bunk-use proved to be no different from daytime use, and night- and day-use co-varied; bunk use recorded in daylight is thus a good proxy for overall use. Bunk use did not, however, influence kit weights at weaning, nor reduce dam deaths from nursing sickness (replicating the previous year's findings), nor significantly improve subjectively scored teat health (unlike the previous year's findings). Experiment 2 reassessed bunk effects using larger sample sizes, and investigated their interaction with enrichment objects. Focusing on primiparous dams ( n =318), it evaluated whether providing balls and items to chew, along with bunks in a cross-factored design, could decrease stereotypic behaviour, glucocorticoid output (assessed via faecal cortisol metabolites: FCM), kit losses, and, again dam mortality. Objects were provided c. 10 months earlier (since the previous July) for approximately 60% of the object-enriched dams, and c. 5 months earlier (since January) for the remaining 40%. Analyses showed that effects of bunks and enrichment-objects did not significantly interact for any variable. Bunks significantly reduced kit mortality: kit losses/litter were reduced by c. 0.3 infants, resulting in negligible levels of mortality, and bunks tended to reduce dam stereotypy levels by about half (from approximately 12.5% to 6% of time spent active). However, bunks had no significant effects on FCM or dam mortality rates. Bunk-use also significantly co-varied with litter size, being greatest in dams with bigger litters. Enrichment objects tended to increase weaning litter size, an effect caused by dams provided with these objects for 5 months weaning 0.9 more kits per litter than females without these items. However, this type of enrichment again had no significant effects on FCM or dam mortality. Instead, which farm animals lived on appeared to be the major determinant of FCM and dam mortality: both significantly varied between farms, with one farm showing notably higher levels of both. Also, even controlling for farm, females who died tended to have had elevated glucocorticoids when sampled 2–3 weeks prior to death. In conclusion, bunks and manipulable enrichment objects seem ineffective against nursing sickness, but had independent, additive effects on the productivity of young adult females, possibly acting by improving primiparous dams' welfare.

Farmed mink infants (Neovison vison) remain with their mothers beyond natural weaning age. This benefits their welfare, but can stress their mothers and contribute to illness (e.g. ‘nursing sickness’). European studies have explored augmenting cages with structures allowing mothers to get away from their infants (‘kits’); these show that if provided with high, shelf-like structures permitting rest away from kits, dams utilise them. Here, we assessed the benefits of providing an elevated ‘getaway bunk’ – a wire-mesh half-cylinder attached to the cage ceiling – to 80 Black dams on an Ontario farm. Controls comprised nursing females without bunks (n = 80), and barren females given bunks (n = 40). Behaviour was observed daily over kit ages 23–42 days. Mothers were removed from litters at 42 days (typical for North American farms), at which time health and production parameters were recorded. Mothers used bunks approximately half as much as barren dams, but their bunk-use increased as kits aged, up to c. 7% scans (c. 30 min per observation day). Seasonal changes in temperature did not explain this pattern. Bunks increased maternal rest (from 78.9 to 82.3% of scans; c. 16 min per observation day), and increased the time spent with teats inaccessible to kits by a similar amount. Dams with bunks showed approximately one third less stereotypy (3.7% scans, compared to 5.4% in bunkless controls): a reduction most evident when kits were aged 30–42 days, when infants transition from milk to water and solid food; and, although apparently not protected from nursing sickness, at the end of lactation they were less likely to have swollen, red and/or crusty teats (which thermal imaging also showed were significantly hotter), suggesting less mastitis. Such benefits seemed particularly strong in multiparous dams: effects of bunks on teat health and stereotypy as a proportion of activity (not scans) were significant in older dams but not first-time mothers when analysed separately. Kits’ suckling opportunities and time spent nursing were not significantly reduced by the bunks, however; nor did bunks compromise kit survivorship or weights at 42 days. Elevated bunks can thus enhance mink mothers’ welfare during the nursing period, seemingly without serious drawbacks for their kits. Unexpectedly, however, all study dams had very high mortality (>20%; more than triple that of non-experimental animals on the farm), suggesting that repeated live observation, or being housed close to barren dams, may elevate risks of nursing sickness.