Animal welfare is attracting increasing interest worldwide, especially in developed countries where the knowledge and resources are available to (at least potentially) provide better management systems for farm animals, as well as companion, zoo and laboratory animals. The key requirements for adequate food, water, a suitable environment, appropriate companionship and good health are important for animals kept for all of these purposes.  There has been increased attention given to farm animal welfare in many countries in recent years. This derives largely from the fact that the relentless pursuit of financial reward and efficiency, to satisfy market demands, 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 needs. Animal welfare is usually a priority only if it supports the output of the animal, be it food, work, clothing, sport or companionship. In principle the welfare needs of both humans and animals can be provided for, in both developing and developed countries, if resources are properly husbanded. In reality, however, 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 users (FAO, 2002) and the farmed animal population is increasing rapidly to meet the needs of an expanding human population. This results in a tendency to allocate
fewer resources to each animal and to value individual animals less, particularly in the case of farmed poultry where flocks of over 20,000 birds are not uncommon. In these circumstances, the importance of each individual’s welfare is diminished.

Increased attention to welfare issues is just as evident for companion, laboratory, wild and zoo animals. Of increasing importance is the ethical management of breeding programmes, since genetic manipulation is more feasible, but there is less public tolerance of the deliberate breeding of animals with genetic abnormalities. However, the quest for producing novel genotypes has fascinated breeders for centuries. Dog and cat breeders have produced a variety of extreme forms with adverse effects on their welfare, but nowadays the quest is pursued in the laboratory, where a range of species, mainly mice, is genetically altered, sometimes with equally profound effects. The intimate connection between animals and humans that was once so essential in some spheres 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, companion animals 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, people struggle to find the moral imperatives to
determine the level of welfare that they should afford to animals within their charge. Some, in particular many 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 where their health and wellbeing
can be extremely poor. Today’s multiplicity of moral codes for animal care and use are derived from a broad range of cultural influences including media reports of animal abuse, guidelines on ethical consumption, animal behaviour and welfare science, and campaigning and lobbying groups. This series has been designed to help contribute towards a culture of respect for animals and their welfare by producing 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, 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, as are key areas where further research is required.
In this volume one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of poultry welfare science, Professor Ian Duncan, has joined with Dr Penny Hawkins, a leading advocate for improvements in laboratory bird management and welfare and Deputy Head of the RSPCA’s Research Animals Department. Together they have brought together many experts in the field of captive bird welfare, including those that have been involved with research on improving poultry welfare as well as those with experience of other captive birds.
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.