Yes, Chris: we’re using a cardinal scale. To your point about estimating the average realized values of welfare, I agree that this would be highly valuable. Animal welfare scientists don’t do it because they don’t face decisions that require it. If you’re primarily responsible for studying broiler welfare, you don’t need to know how to compare broiler welfare with pig welfare. You just need to know what to recommend to improve broiler welfare. As for RP, we’d love to work on this and I’ve proposed such projects many times. However, this work has never been of sufficient interest to funders. If that changes, you can bet I’ll devote a lot of time to it!
Yes, Chris: we’re using a cardinal scale. To your point about estimating the average realized values of welfare, I agree that this would be highly valuable. Animal welfare scientists don’t do it because they don’t face decisions that require it. If you’re primarily responsible for studying broiler welfare, you don’t need to know how to compare broiler welfare with pig welfare. You just need to know what to recommend to improve broiler welfare. As for RP, we’d love to work on this and I’ve proposed such projects many times. However, this work has never been of sufficient interest to funders. If that changes, you can bet I’ll devote a lot of time to it!