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Simple Summary: Farm animal welfare research conducted in China is relatively less accessed and unknown outside of the country, which might create the impression that farm animal welfare receives limited attention in China. This paper aims to offer a comprehensive review of the existing Chinese farm animal welfare literature. CiteSpace software was employed for the analysis and visualization of various aspects of the literature, including the quantity, species, authors, institutions, journals, and keywords. This process helped reveal the research trends, hotspots, and frontiers in the field. The findings from this bibliometric analysis strongly indicate that farm animal welfare is a subject of considerable interest and research activity in China. Farm animal welfare research conducted in China is not commonly accessed or known outside of China, which may lead to the assumption that farm animal welfare receives relatively little attention in China. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on the existing Chinese farm animal welfare literature to provide robust evidence to refute this assumption. A total of 1312 peer-reviewed Chinese studies on farm animal welfare published between March 1992 and June 2023 were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. CiteSpace software was used to analyze and visualize the number, species, authors, institutions, journals, and keywords of the papers. In China, farm animal welfare research has gone through the processes of an early stage (1992–2001), rapid-growth stage (2002–2007), and mature stage (2008–present), and the scale of research continues to grow. Notably, swine and chickens have received priority attention in this area. A Matthew effect was observed for authors and institutions, with relatively little collaboration among authors and institutions. Most of the papers were published in a small number of journals, with an apparent agglomeration characteristic. The research hotspots, summarized as "feed and diet", "environmental impacts and control", "integrated rearing management", "injury and disease", "behavior and technologies for behavior monitoring", "genetic analysis", "welfare during transport and slaughter", "welfare-friendly animal product consumption", "attitudes toward farm animal welfare", and "healthy breeding". The keywords "computer vision", "recognition", "temperature", "precision livestock farming", "laying hen", and "behavior", represent the major research frontiers in the field, which could indicate potential areas of significant future research. The findings of the present bibliometric analysis confirm the fact that farm animal welfare is a field of interest in China. Farm animal welfare research in China tends to be pragmatic, with a strong emphasis on enhancing growth and production performance, as well as product quality, rather than solely concentrating on improving farm animal welfare. This paper provides insightful references that researchers can use to identify and understand the current status and future direction of the farm animal welfare field in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The term 'natural behaviour' is widely used by food companies to advertise their animal welfare credentials but the public needs to be made aware that there is no necessary connecton between naturalness and good welfare. Some natural behaviour contributes to good welfare but others, such as being chased and caught by a predator, does not. Used on its own without supporting evidence, 'natural behaviour' lacks the most essential criterion for good welfare—whether it matters to the animals themselves. There are now tried and tested methods for establishing what animals value ranging from simple choice tests to what they find rewarding in learning tasks and are prepared to work to obtain. In addition, the growth of animal behaviour studies over the last 60 years has yielded a wealth of new information about what animals respond to, what motivates them, how their behaviour develops during their lifetimes and how the behaviour of modern farm animals differs from that of their wild ancestors. By using all this information as well as just relying on the shaky concept of 'natural behaviour', there are thus now opportunities for improving farm animal welfare that are both more evidence-based and more animal-centred. Despite the many scientific objections that have been raise to it, 'natural behaviour' is widely used as an indication of good welfare by the food industry. The supposed link between welfare and natural behaviour derives, however, from a now outdated view of animals becoming frustrated if they cannot perform their natural instinctive behaviour. On the 60th anniversary of its publication, Niko Tinbergens' Four Questions framework is used to show why there is no necessary link between natural behaviour and welfare and why, therefore, reliance on natural behaviour in commercial farming may not result in the claimed improvements in welfare. Used on its own without supporting evidence, 'natural behaviour' lacks the most essential criterion for good welfare—whether it matters to the animals themselves. There are now a number of well-established methods for demonstrating what animals value, including choice tests and, particularly, what animals will work and pay a cost to obtain. Some of the evidence on what animals value is already available in published papers but some will require collaborative research between scientists and commercial farming to find practical and commercially viable ways of providing animals with what they value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As farm animal welfare becomes an increasingly important component of contemporary global livestock production, animal welfare science and animal welfare policy-making need to find new ways of entering global debates over food security and sustainability. In this paper, we explore the means by which both animal welfare science and policy should articulate with these emerging global debates. Having first established the important gains in animal welfare policy and the maturity of animal welfare science, we identify and explore the potential impact of these current debates and argue that they have the potential for profound change in our understanding of, and our response to, the welfare of animals. We conclude the paper with a number of possible recommendations for how a scientifically informed, sustainable animal welfare policy might flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]