Overall animal welfare reviewed. Part 2: Assessment tables and schemes

In the scientific literature several attempts have been made to systematica lly assess the overall welfare-status of animals in relation to housing and management. This paper reviews assessment tables and schemes that have bee n constructed to this end. These tables and schemes have a tabular format t hat allows an assessment of housing systems using a list of welfare-relevan t attributes (properties of the housing system). Rather than identifying de ficits, the focus of this review is on finding positive recommendations for the purpose of developing a method for overall welfare assessment (OWA) on a scientific basis. The main recommendation is to use the tabular format a s representation formalism for OWA. The concept of linked tables provides t he key to performing OWA on a scientific basis in an explicit and systemati c way.