Animal welfare is attracting increasing interest worldwide, but particularly from those in developed countries, who now have the knowledge and resources to be able to offer the best management systems for their farm animals, as well as potentially being able to offer plentiful resources for companion, zoo and laboratory animals. The increased attention given to farm animal welfare in the West derives largely from the fact that the relentless pursuit of financial reward and efficiency has led to the development of intensive animal production systems that challenge the conscience of many consumers in those countries. In developing countries, human survival is still a daily uncertainty, so that provision for animal welfare has to be balanced against human welfare. Welfare is usually provided for only if it supports the output of the animal, be it food, work, clothing, sport or companionship. In reality, there are resources for all if they are properly husbanded in both developing and developed countries. The inequitable division of the world’s riches creates physical and psychological poverty for humans and animals alike in many parts of the world. 
Livestock are the world’s biggest land user (FAO, 2002) and the population is increasing rapidly to meet the need of an expanding human population. Populations of farm animals managed by humans are therefore increasing worldwide, and there is the tendency to allocate fewer resources to each animal. Increased attention to welfare issues is just as evident for companion, laboratory, wild and zoo animals. Although the economics of welfare provision may be less critical than for farm animals, the key issues of provision of adequate food, water, a suitable environment, companionship and health remain as important as they are for farm animals. Of increasing importance is the ethical management of breeding programmes, now that genetic manipulation is more feasible, but there is less tolerance 
of deliberate breeding of animals with genetic abnormalities. However, the quest for producing novel genotypes has fascinated breeders for centuries, and where dog and cat breeders produced a variety of extreme forms with adverse effects on their welfare in earlier times, nowadays the quest is pursued in the laboratory, where the mouse is genetically manipulated with even more dramatic effects. 
The intimate connection between animal and owner or manager that was so essential in the past is rare nowadays, having been superseded by technologically efficient production systems, where animals on farms and in laboratories are tended by increasingly few humans in the drive to enhance labour efficiency. With today’s busy lifestyle, pets too may suffer from reduced contact with humans, although their value in providing companionship, particularly for certain groups such as the elderly, is increasingly recognised. Consumers also rarely have any contact with the animals that produce their food. In this estranged, efficient world man struggles to find the moral imperatives to determine the level of welfare that he should afford to animals within his charge. Some, and in particular many of the companion animal owners, aim for what they believe to be the highest levels of welfare provision, while others, deliberately or through ignorance, keep animals in impoverished conditions or even dangerously close to death. Religious beliefs and directives encouraging us to care for animals have often been cast aside in an act of supreme human self-confidence, stemming largely from the accelerating pace of scientific development. Instead, today’s moral codes are derived as much from media reports of animal abuse and the assurances that we receive from supermarkets, that animals used for their products have not suffered in any way. The young were always exhorted to be kind to animals through exposure to fables, whose moral message was the benevolent treatment of animals. Such messages are today enlivened by the powerful images of modern technology, but essentially still alert children to the wrongs associated with animal abuse. 
This series has been designed to provide academic texts discussing the provision for the welfare of the major animal species that are managed and cared for by humans. They are not detailed blue-prints for the management of each species, rather they describe and consider the major welfare concerns of the species, often in relation to the wild progenitors of the managed animals. Welfare is considered in relation to the animal’s needs, concentrating on nutrition, behaviour, reproduction and the physical and social environment. Economic effects of animal welfare provision are also considered where relevant, and key areas requiring further research. In this volume four of the world’s leading scientists in the field, Drs Jeffrey Rushen, Anne Marie de Passillé, Marina von Keyserlingk and Dan Weary, present a challenging account of the welfare issues facing dairy and beef cattle. Drawing on their detailed knowledge of the behavioural and physiological correlates of welfare in cattle, they provide an account of the major issues facing one of the most important of agricultural species. With the growing pace of knowledge in this new area of research, it is hoped that this series will provide a timely and much-needed set of texts for researchers, lecturers, practitioners, and students. My thanks are particularly due to the publishers for their support, and to the authors and editors for their hard work in producing the texts on time and in good order.Clive Phillips, Series Editor, Professor of Animal Welfare and Director, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Australia