At one end of the spectrum is exploitative research: Humans test beauty products and pharmaceuticals on animals in laboratories to understand the impacts those products might have on humans. This is done without the animals’ consent and may not even accurately predict how humans will respond to the products or drugs.

Far at the other end of the spectrum is noninvasive, sanctuary-based research that can be co-created with the animals and follow ethical guidelines designed to center the animals’ preferences and choices. We’re pursuing this type of research at Farm Sanctuary to explore the complex lives of farm animals and to change how people understand and relate to them, as species and individuals.

In 2015, Farm Sanctuary began a research initiative in partnership with The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy: an organization “devoted to transforming our relationships with nonhuman animals from exploitation to respect by combining academic scholarship with animal advocacy.” Our collaboration, The Someone Project, has yielded four peer-reviewed journal articles and white papers documenting cow, chicken, pig, and sheep sentience.

These comprehensive literature reviews document cognition, emotion, and behavior in farm animals — and how these individuals compare to dogs, cats, and other animals that people hold in high regard. We say this not to use intelligence to justify better treatment. Rather, the findings provide scientific backing to what we already know at Farm Sanctuary: that farm animals, like anyone, have rich, fulfilling lives — and that they deserve to enjoy them, free from harm.

Farm Sanctuary has a unique opportunity to add to this growing body of research because we have farm animals in our care. Alongside our Sanctuary caregivers, our Research team observes how farm animals live.

In 2022, our research aims to:

• Support human understanding of the nature and lived experience of farm animals, as individuals and species.
• Explore the mutually liberatory potential for human-animal relationships and community in a sanctuary setting.
• Support holistic emotional, social, physical, and community care; and explore radical modes of listening, observing, and understanding the expressed desires and agency of farm animals.

In this way, we can support these animals’ agency in living meaningful lives of their choosing, and help society see them for who they are — and not what animal agriculture makes them out to be.

All research proposals must be designed and carried out with the animal residents’ needs, preferences, desires, health, and safety as top priorities. They must either improve welfare, increase agency to the residents, or both. They also require review by our Research with Animals Advisory Committee (RAAC). The RAAC consists of ethicists, animal welfare scientists, animal cognition scientists, veterinary scientists, and scholar advocates.

Its members — Melisa Choubak, Ph.D.; Becca Franks, Ph.D.; Lori Gruen, Ph.D.; Lori Marino, Ph.D.; Alan McElligott, Ph.D.; and James Reynolds, DVM — ensure alignment with our mission, scientific rigor, and accountability to Farm Sanctuary’s research ethics guidelines.

Our goals for noninvasive research with animals are to:

• Avoid suffering and harm (physical, social, psychological, etc.)
• Offer choice and control over their participation.
• Provide a benefit to participants.
• Promote reciprocity.
• Recognize power dynamics.
• Improve participant welfare and/or generate information that changes the way society views and treats farm animals.

Our first study explores the relationship between a history of trauma and signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in cows and pigs. Specifically, the team is observing behavior in animals with known trauma — in comparison to those with histories of less trauma.

This research is purely observational, to avoid inducing stress among the animals in our care. The team set up cameras in the animals’ barns to capture their behaviors and is collecting data two weeks after the animals arrive, two weeks after their health quarantine ends when they are cleared to join other animals, and then six months later.

The researchers also created an ethogram (a list of behaviors and definitions) to record and analyze stereotypic behaviors (i.e., repetitive behaviors with no apparent purpose), self-harming behaviors, vigilance, and activity budget behaviors (how much time they perform certain activities like eating, resting, sleeping, and moving). Other data collection methods include caregiver accounts of the animals’ behavior and (voluntary) salivary cortisol collection: collecting saliva, which is later tested for stress hormone levels, in exchange for treats.

Current participants include Hayes steer, Aggie cow, and Paula cow. We also plan to expand this work through collaborations with other sanctuaries. The goal is to learn how we can best anticipate these animals’ unique needs and provide appropriate support in their transition to sanctuary life and beyond.

Animal welfare involves more than reducing suffering and avoiding harm. We also want the animals in our care to build rich, fulfilling lives they love. To that end, we began our “Joys of Learning” study to learn about the cognitive and emotional capacities of chickens while providing learning opportunities that empower them to take control in manifesting their own joy.

“The goals of this research are not to reveal that farm animals are emotional in the same way that humans are, or that they have the same cognitive capacities as we do,” explains Director of Research Lauri Torgerson-White. “It’s actually just the opposite. We are interested in who chickens, pigs, turkeys, cows, sheep, and goats really are and we’re guessing that, whether they love to learn or not, whether they experience PTSD or not, having a better understanding of their inner lives will elicit compassion for them.”

All research participation is voluntary: Interested hens line up at the door to take part in each trial. Over time, they’ve learned that a certain bowl placed in a specific location will contain treats — and to ignore other bowls placed in other locations that do not yield any rewards.

The Research team entered the study with three questions in mind:

• Do chickens express behavioral and physiological indicators consistent with positive emotion in response to learning?
• Are chickens more optimistic after being presented with learning opportunities?
• Are there individual differences in emotional responses to learning?

While this study is still underway, the team has observed that chickens respond to these tasks in ways that may indicate joy. We can measure two out of three components of emotion in nonhuman animals: expressed (based on how an individual behaves) and physiological (based on changes in body temperature, as measured by a thermography camera). The third, a subjective component, is based on how an individual feels (and as we don’t speak the chickens’ language, we’re unable to directly interpret what is going through their minds). From our early findings, however, we’ve seen anecdotal changes in these markers as they approach the bowls that hold their treats and solve puzzles to obtain additional rewards.

Our hope is that people will learn to see chickens as sentient, emotional beings — and realize that their lives have more purpose than as objects on people’s plates.

Farm Sanctuary’s non-invasive research studies are made possible by our generous donors, who share our vision of changing how the world views and treats farm animals and providing rescued animals with everything they need to live well. In the end, Sanctuary is a place where animals can heal and be themselves. We hope that this work helps us better understand farm animals’ specific wants and needs, on both an individual and species level, so we can best support who they are and how they wish to live — and so others may do the same.