ArticleFrontiers in veterinary science2018
A Framework to Assess the Impact of New Animal Management Technologies on Welfare: A Case Study of Virtual Fencing.
Article in Frontiers in veterinary science, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
- How do grazing beef and dairy cattle respond to virtual fences? A review.Journal of animal science · 2024Pooled it
- Some attributes of pasture-based systems as they relate to dairy cow welfare.JDS communications · 2026Article
- Cognition of dairy cattle: Implications for animal welfare and dairy science.JDS communications · 2025Review
- Effects of virtual fencing on behavior, cortisol concentrations, feed intake, and milk yield of lactating dairy cows in different grazing systems.Journal of animal science · 2025Article
- A matter of age? How age affects the adaptation of lactating dairy cows to virtual fencing.Journal of animal science · 2024Article
- Stress indicators in dairy cows adapting to virtual fencing.Journal of animal science · 2024Article
- Stakeholder Challenges and Opportunities of GPS Shock Collars to Achieve Optimum Welfare in a Conservation or Farm Setting.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Attitudes towards the Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices to Manage Wild Elephant Movement.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Skin Cortisol and Acoustic Activity: Potential Tools to Evaluate Stress and Welfare in Captive Cetaceans.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Automated Virtual Fencing Can Effectively Contain Sheep: Field Trials and Prospects.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Cortisol in Manure from Cattle Enclosed with Nofence Virtual Fencing.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Current and Future Approaches to Mitigate Conflict between Humans and Asian Elephants: The Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Review
- Looking beyond the Shoal: Fish Welfare as an Individual Attribute.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Is Virtual Fencing an Effective Way of Enclosing Cattle? Personality, Herd Behaviour and Welfare.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Biometric Physiological Responses from Dairy Cows Measured by Visible Remote Sensing Are Good Predictors of Milk Productivity and Quality through Artificial Intelligence.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Drone approach parameters leading to lower stress sheep flocking and movement: sky shepherding.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Animal Welfare Implications of Digital Tools for Monitoring and Management of Cattle and Sheep on Pasture.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- A Perspective on Strategic Enrichment for Brain Development: Is This the Key to Animal Happiness?Frontiers in veterinary science · 2021Article
- A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Assess the Welfare Impacts of a New Virtual Fencing Technology.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2021Article
- Progress With Livestock Welfare in Extensive Production Systems: Lessons From Australia.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To be ethically acceptable, new husbandry technologies and livestock management systems must maintain or improve animal welfare. To achieve this goal, the design and implementation of new technologies need to harness and complement the learning abilities of animals. Here, from literature on the cognitive activation theory of stress (CATS), we develop a framework to assess welfare outcomes in terms of the animal's affective state and its learned ability to predict and control engagement with the environment, including, for example, new technologies. In CATS, animals' perception of their situation occurs through cognitive evaluation of predictability and controllability (P/C) that influence learning and stress responses. Stress responses result when animals are not able to predict or control both positive and negative events. A case study of virtual fencing involving avoidance learning is described. Successful learning occurs when the animal perceives cues to be predictable (audio warning always precedes a shock) and controllable (operant response to the audio cue prevents receiving the shock) and an acceptable welfare outcome ensues. However, if animals are unable to learn the association between the audio and shock cues, the situation retains low P/C leading to states of helplessness or hopelessness, with serious implications for animal welfare. We propose a framework for determining welfare outcomes and highlight examples of how animals' cognitive evaluation of their environment and their ability to learn relates to stress responses. New technologies or systems should ensure that predictability and controllability are not at low levels and that operant tasks align with learning abilities to provide optimal animal welfare outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.