What Animal Welfare Advice Does the RSPCA Provide for Pets, Farm Animals and Wildlife?

Updated

The RSPCA publishes free welfare and advice content on rspca.org.uk organised into three main animal groups — pets, farm animals and wildlife — plus cross-cutting sections on cost-of-living support, pet loss support and seasonal advice. You can use it to look up care guidance for a specific species, check what counts as good welfare for an animal you own or keep, or find out what to do about a wild animal you've found. The advice is general guidance rather than a diagnosis or a substitute for a vet, and it sits alongside the charity's separate services for rehoming, fostering, cruelty reporting and financial assistance.

Advice for pets

The pet section covers companion animals, with dedicated pages for:

  • Cats
  • Dogs
  • Horses
  • Rabbits

The site also lists a "See more" link under pets, indicating additional species pages beyond these four. Alongside the species pages, there is an Advice for Adopters section, which is aimed at people taking on a rescued animal rather than existing owners.

If you are planning to adopt, the practical starting points are the Find a Pet tool and the Rehoming and Adoption and Fostering pages, which sit in the same navigation area as the pet advice.

Advice for farm animals

The farm animal section is organised by production type rather than by species alone:

  • Beef Cattle
  • Dairy Cows
  • Farmed Fish
  • Laying Hens
  • Meat Chickens

This structure reflects the welfare issues that differ between, for example, a dairy cow and a meat chicken, so it is worth going to the specific page rather than a general farm animal page. The RSPCA also runs campaign content tied to farming, including Better Chicken, Better Labels and Better Choices, which sit under the Get Involved / Campaign area rather than the advice section.

Advice for wildlife

The wildlife section covers animals you are most likely to encounter in the UK:

  • Badgers
  • Birds
  • Deer
  • Foxes
  • Hedgehogs

These pages are the ones to check if you have found an injured or apparently abandoned wild animal and want to know whether to intervene and how. The RSPCA's wider wildlife work also includes Wildlife Centres and Release under its "What We Do" section, which is separate from the advice pages.

Cross-cutting support sections

Three sections apply across all animal types:

Section What it covers
Cost-of-Living Support Help for owners struggling to afford pet care
Pet Loss Support Support after the death of a pet
Seasonal Advice Time-of-year specific guidance (e.g. fireworks, hot weather)

The Fireworks and Save our Breath campaigns sit in the campaign area and relate to seasonal and air-quality welfare concerns.

How to use the advice

  1. Decide which group your animal falls into — pet, farm animal or wildlife.
  2. Open the species page from the relevant menu (for example, Cats under Pets, or Hedgehogs under Wildlife).
  3. Read the guidance for your specific situation; if it concerns an animal's health, treat the page as background information and contact a vet.
  4. For owner-support issues such as affordability or bereavement, go to Cost-of-Living Support or Pet Loss Support instead of a species page.

What the site does not do

The advice pages are guidance, not a veterinary service. If you need to report cruelty or a concern, that is handled through the separate Report a concern route. If you need financial help with vet care, that falls under Financial Assistance in the "What We Do" section. Rehoming and fostering have their own dedicated pages rather than being covered by the advice content.