台灣與瑞典的動物福祉: 雞隻與豬隻的現況、法規與未來展望

Abstract

Animal Welfare has been a significantly important issue in the EU and receives more governmental attention than other countries. The idea of animal welfare for the public is usually from the animal epidemic news or food scandals, and it has not taken as an urgent issue to be solved in Taiwan. Intensive farming has been considered as a sufficient way to operate in agriculture in Taiwan because of limited space. While Council of Agriculture (COA) has been doing research projects of farm animal welfare and encourage students to conduct more researches in this area. People in Sweden consider that animal welfare is well organized in their country and has been taken care of by government and the responsible industries. Within the EU, there is a widespread agreement that Sweden is leading beyond. Since Sweden is the most advanced country in the field of farm animal welfare. Thus, the aim of this study is to improve the animal welfare and solve the main welfare problem in Taiwan by the example from Swedish approach. In this study, farming practice and animal welfare problem of pig and chicken in both countries are presented and discussed. There are many serious welfare problems in farm animal in Taiwan such as beak trimming, battery cages for laying hens; sow stalls, farrowing crates, teeth-clipping, environment temperature, tail docking, castration, stocking density, space allowance, heat stress and castration for pigs which are banned in the EU. Besides, contact dermatitis, low survival rate, inappropriate lighting, lacking record, cannibalism, and treatment of sick and weak chickens are the welfare problems of Taiwan country chicken which are unique problems in Taiwan, and they are important issues that need to be solved. How could we supervise and modify them and take the example from Sweden to improve the welfare of farm animals in Taiwan still needs more investigation and improvement.