Animal Welfare Assessment

This collaborative site has a special emphasis on the recognition and assessment of pain, as pain is an area that is frequently lacking from many animal welfare assessments and yet is often key when animal welfare problems arise. 

This resource provides information about identifying welfare indicators, assessing and reporting actual severity, effective record keeping and review, and staff training.

Includes free online tutorials:

• Practical Animal Handling
• Basic Assessment: Laboratory Animal Health and Welfare
• Recognising Post-Operative Pain in Animals

Changes in facial expression provide a reliable and rapid means of assessing pain in animals. NC3Rs provides training manuals, lists of references, and posters of grimace scales developed for the laboratory:

• Mouse
• Rabbit
• Rat

"A comprehensive welfare assessment scheme will include multiple measurements including behavioural indicators, physiological indicators and health indicators such as clinical signs"