Abstract:
Animal welfare is an emerging phenomenon, and relatively a new field to the livestock sector in
Sri Lanka. The current study aims to provide a better insight into perception and awareness of
livestock welfare among village community and to identify the potential, and facts that need to
be considered when implementing public awareness programme. The questionnaire included
five major areas such as 1. Awareness of farm animal welfare, 2. Awareness of living condition of
farm animals, 3. Awareness of humane practices in livestock management, 4. Buyer’s willingness
to pay for livestock welfare, and 5. The requirement of awareness programme and legislations of
livestock welfare. Data were descriptively analyzed by using SAS 9.4 version. Villagers were
randomly selected and interviewed face to face. From 150 questionnaires, 78 of the respondents
had no idea of the term animal welfare. Among the respondents, majority believed that the most
important aspects of animal welfare are exhibiting natural behaviour (26%) and exposing to the
natural environment (36%). Moreover, 70% of respondents believed that living condition is
important to livestock. All the respondents believed that transportation is a stress factor.
Overall, 90% of respondents stated that killing is painful, and they also believed that stun prior
to killing is a better practice than killing conscious animals. However, 30% of respondents did
not concern about livestock welfare-friendly products, and 26% did not like to pay more for
those products. Everyone agreed that school children and small-scale livestock farmers should
be educated about animal welfare. Few (8%) believed that education of the public on livestock
welfare is difficult. Every respondent stated that the introduction of new laws needs to ensure
livestock welfare and they stated that they are not aware of the current existing laws of animal
welfare. In conclusion, majority of the respondents had positive attitudes on improving livestock
welfare indicating that there is a good potential to implement public awareness programs on
livestock welfare among the village community in the district
