Table 1.

Model-based grading of animal welfare compromise related to particular challenges. The examples refer to specific indices and inferred affects considered in relation to Domains 1 to 4, except for toxicity testing in Domain 3 where the observed indices and inferred affects are generalised. Example animals include livestock, working animals, pets, “pests” and laboratory animals. Note that, theoretically, Model-based grading may be applied to any vertebrate where scientific understanding is sufficient to support the meaningful use of particular indices. Note also that the primary purpose here is to illustrate how specific attributes may be graded. It is not to demonstrate a full Model-based assessment of compromise involving grading of the multiple attributes covered via Domains 1 to 4 and their inferred affects via Domain 5, all considered together (Figure 1). Details of such full assessments have been published elsewhere [26,27,28,35,36,37]. Finally, note that “A: none” on the compromise scale does not imply welfare enhancement (see Table 2).

Animal Welfare Challenge	Compromise Grade
	A: None	B: Low	C: Mild to Moderate	D: Marked to Severe	E: Very Severe
Domain 1: Nutrition
Access to water in livestock, pets, working animals, etc.:	Water freely available:	12-h interruption in water supply, cold weather:	24-h interruption in water supply; hot weather:	Within-group competition for limited water long term:	Water not available (supply failure, drought):
Availability; inferred thirst	No to very low-level thirst	Low-level thirst	Moderate thirst	Severe thirst	Extreme thirst
Feeding level in sheep:	Good-level and stable body condition (3/5):	Mid-level and stable body condition (2.5/5):	Mid-level body condition (2.5/5), slowly decreasing:	Rapidly decreasing or low-level body condition (1.5/5):	Very low body condition (0.5/5)—emaciated:
Body condition score; inferred hunger	No to very low-level hunger	Low-level hunger	Moderate hunger	Severe hunger	Extreme hunger
Domain 2: Environment
Heat load in sheep: Panting; inferred hyperthermic distress	Ambient conditions thermoneutral:		High radiant load, temperature, humidity:		Extreme radiant load, temperature, humidity:
	No panting		Closed mouth panting		Open mouth panting
	No hyperthermic distress		Mild to moderate distress		Very severe distress
Air quality in housed pigs: NH4 levels; inferred eye and nasal irritation	Good ventilation, fresh air: No eye/nasal irritation		Ventilation poor:	Ventilation very poor:
			NH4 10–15 ppm	NH4 greater than 25 ppm
			Mild eye/nasal irritation	Marked eye/nasal irritation
Domain 3: Health
Amputation dehorning in calves:	Nerve blockade plus systemic analgesic:		Nerve blockade alone or systemic analgesic alone:		No pain relief:
Acute cortisol stress response; inferred pain	Complete pain relief		Partial pain relief
	Very low stress response		Moderate to marked stress response		Very marked stress response
	Little or no acute pain		Moderate to marked acute pain		Very marked acute pain
Impeded breathing in dogs: Exercise intolerance; inferred breathlessness	Normal or long-nosed:		Moderately snub-nosed:		Severely snub-nosed:
	Exercise tolerant, breathing normal		Brief exercise bouts ended by laboured breathing		Laboured breathing at rest, totally exercise intolerant
	No breathlessness		Moderate breathlessness		Very severe breathlessness
Toxicity testing in pest and laboratory animals:	Non-toxic substances:	Low toxicity substances:	Mildly toxic substances:	Markedly toxic substances:	Highly toxic substances:
Untoward organ-specific clinical signs; various affects	No untoward clinical signs	Minor/short lived clinical signs, then recovery	Moderate/short lived or minor/longer lived clinical signs, then recovery	Marked/short lived or moderate/longer lived clinical signs, then recovery	Extreme clinical signs, followed by death while conscious
Domain 4: Behaviour
Tethering/caging of dogs:	Not tethered/caged:	Tethered/caged 25% of the time:	Tethered/caged 50% of the time:	Tethered/caged 75% of the time:	Tethered/caged 100% of the time:
Exercise limitation; inferred boredom/depression	Exercise not limited	Some boredom/depression	Medium boredom/depression	Marked boredom/depression	Severe boredom/depression
	No boredom/depression
Handling livestock:	Calm, tamed, trained and fully compliant animals:	Feedlot animals with regular human contact:	Paddock animals with some human contact:	Range animals with little prior human contact:	Feral/wild animals with no prior human contact:
Prior contact; restraint level; induced cortisol stress response; inferred fear	Gentle handling	Need light restraint	Need firm restraint	Need strong restraint	Need very strong restraint
	No response and fear	Low response and fear	Moderate response and fear	Marked response and fear	Extreme response and fear

Relevant major sources: [5,6,12,16,17,18,20,21,22,29,34,44,46,56,57,58,59,61,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90].