Example Welfare Assessment Form

Brief overview of the welfare issue: (Note: you may wish to do a separate assessment, or grading for each
subset of animals: eg. Adult poultry, day old chicks, sows in crates, sows in stalls, growers etc…)

Region: Country: Species: Target population:

Person conducting the assessment: Date of Assessment:

Results of the assessment:

Domain Severity grade (O, A, B, C, X)

See below
1 Water/food deprivation/malnutrition

2 Environmental challenge

3 Disease, injury, functional impairment

4 Behavioural or interactive restriction

5 Anxiety, fear, pain, distress, thirst, hunger,

boredom

Overall severity grade – average of the above 5

grades

Number of animals affected

Percentage of animals worst affected, and worst

welfare grade

Duration of the welfare problem

Additional Comments:
Please use this space to give comments on the assessment e.g. your professional judgement of the situation, you may want reflect
your reasoning for arriving at the severity score or the percentage of animals worst affected.

*Severity Grade: The severity scale consists of five grades – O, A, B C and X – representing increasingly severe suffering. ‘O’
can be considered to be the absence of suffering or a situation where the potential for suffering can be easily avoided. ‘A’ can be
termed mild suffering, ‘B’ moderate suffering and ‘C’ severe suffering. While ‘X’ is a state of suffering that will inevitable end in
the animal dying from its situation. Some examples:

For examples: please see the attached document: for companion animals, this can be adapted for any
animals.