LO4: Factual Copy

Essay to be included in booklet.Animal Welfare Within the Meat Industry.

It is a well known and widely accepted fact that in order for humans and any other creature to consume meat then something must die. However it is easy to believe, to convince ourselves that within the food industry these animals, that are determined to be used as food are kept happy all the way up to their timely death.

Animals, just like us suffer under stress and tiresome situations. The food and clothing industry, in a pursuit of increased production of uniform products has led to less of an importance set on animal welfare. Because of this almost all animals within the food and even clothing industry suffer on one level or another. From battery farmed chickens to Asian and Indian cows that are transported simply to be cruelly killed and skinned and used for their meat and hide many are treated with less than the most basic levels of respect.

The short lives that these animals live are too often filled with disease and both psychological and physical suffering.

Chickens:

There are two types of chicken fowl in factory based production, Broiler chickens and Laying hens.

Broiler Chickens:

Broiler chickens are fowl that are specifically bred and kept in preparation to be used by the food industry for their meat and in meat products.

These specific chickens have been manipulatively bred by the farming industry to grow much faster than they would do naturally. This was done to maximise the industry’s profitability by increasing the production rate. This is done through a mixture of specifically targeted breeding and hormone and antibiotic packed feed.

And so broiler chickens are forced to reach slaughter weight in a much shorter time than is even physically sustainable. If humans grew at the same rate as broiler chickens, we’d weigh 25 stone at age two. As Dr Toby Knowles from the UK’s Bristol University Division of Food Animal Science states:

‘In the past 50 years, broiler growth rates have increased by over 300 per cent from 25g per day to 100g per day’.

The rate at which these chickens are grow puts and extreme pressure on their legs as their weight increases exponentially. This unnatural weight gain can eventually cause these chickens to collapse under their own weight. This however can in turn lead to hock burns (small patches of discolouration around legs and knee joints and breast) that are caused by the chicken squatting in their own faeces and are therefore exposed to high level ammonia.

The living conditions that these chickens are subjected to can also be considered unethical. As aforementioned, broiler chickens are often burned around their legs and breast from being exposed to high levels of ammonia found in their faeces. The chickens will spend almost their entire life in dirty and packed sheds that are hardly cleaned prevent them from expressing their natural behaviours and exposing them to harmful ammonia gas as well as never allowing them to experience natural sunlight.

From being hatched to being transported for slaughter they will never live outside or express their natural behaviours.

Laying Chickens:

A wild female chicken in one year would lay up to 60 eggs per year (roughly 5 eggs per month). Within the industry that these chickens serve laying hens are forced to up to 300 eggs per year. This totals to upward of 25 per month. This excessive strain placed upon the chickens drains the body of calcium and other nutrients causing the chickens to develop brittle bones disease.

There are several systems of captivity that are used to keep and manage layer hens: Free Range, Barn Systems and Cage Systems.

Free Range Systems:

While this system of keep is touted as being humane and cruelty-free hens are still packed into spaces to small for the sheer number of hens kept. Often upwards of four hens per square metre. This confined system of keep prevents the chickens from fulfilling natural behaviours such as dust bathing.

Essay to be included in booklet.This limit of space and lack of natural behaviours being fulfilled leads to aggression within the hens causing them to peck and attack one another.

The industry’s answer to this; removing part of the hens beak when they are only a day or two old. A painful process that is not always effective and can lead to infection and therefore suffering.

Inadequate ‘pop holes’ that are guarded by dominant hens means that “less than 10 percent of hens are outside at any one time”, according to Veganuary’s FAQ section.

Barn Systems:

A barn system is in many ways similar to free range, however in this case the chickens are more often not allowed to leave the barn. They are kept in a large warehouse like building that typically houses 16,000 chickens in groups of 4,000 to 6,000.

Often this method of storing leads to unsanitary conditions as the housing areas may not be cleaned for months or sometimes years in more intensive chicken farming.

Cage Systems:

Cage systems can easily be considered one of the cruelest and most depressing way of keeping these animals. Half of all laying chickens within the UK are kept in cage systems.

The cages that these birds are kept in are usually no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper, and are shared by up to 5 chickens at any one time. Additionally standing on the wire cage floor causes gashes, cuts and abscesses to develop as continuous pressure is placed on the pads of the chicken's feet.

To an even more extreme extent than that found in the aforementioned systems the chickens are unable to undertake natural behaviours. These include spreading their wings and stretching, dustbathing, foraging for food and nesting. This causes the hens great stress and can lead to very aggressive behaviour such as pecking and plucking feathers.

Because of this almost across almost all cage kept hens debeaking occurs to simply reduce the damage that hens will cause each other out of sheer frustration.

The hens will likely never see the light of day until they are shipped to the slaughter houses. Within the barns that their cages are stored artificial lighting is used and set for longer periods of time than is natural to encourage hens to lay more eggs.

Disease spreads quickly because of severe overcrowding and bodies are crushed as chickens compete for space. Sadly, despite all the deformities, danger and diseases it is rare that these will receive appropriate veterinary treatment.

Hogs and Sows:

By far chickens are not the only animal that suffer under human consumption and production. Of food and other animal products. Within the UK alone 9 million pigs are killed annually and this number has only grown over time.

As the demand for meat increase so does the negligence for animal lives and their fair treatment also increases.

Over half of all female pigs are kept in farrowing crates prior to giving birth. These crates are very similar to the ‘gestation crate’, which are so patently cruel they have been banned in the European Union and several U.S. states.Thesemetal cages are extremely restrictive. The sow is unable to turn around and she can only lie down, stand up, or sit. All the more harrowing is that one of the main arguments that these cages work to prevent sows from crushing their own piglets doesn’t even work. Without a nest the piglets aren’t provided the correct protection against being crushed. A nest allows piglets to ‘wriggle’ free from being crushed.

Living in this captivity denies female pigs from being able to fulfil this natural nest building instinct for their young and they are often seen making down-forward-and-up movements in a desperate attempt to build a nest out of nothing.

At a very young age (usually within their first fews day) many piglets are castrated and mutilated by the farmers for their own ease.

Piglets are castrated without anesthetic or any surgical tools. Tail docking and ear clipping is also often practised to stop pigs later in life from chewing off each others tails and ears in an act of cannibalistic frustration.

Essay to be included in booklet.Chemical disbudding involves a thick heavy chemical paste that causes the horn bud to erode away. This can often leak and careless use of the paste can leave the calf with paste of its skin causing great, long lasting pain.

Cautery disbudding is no better as it involves using a red hot iron being pressed against the horn bud. This burns the horn bud so severely that is cannot heal correctly or regrow the horns of the cow.

Finally these calves may also be subjected to castration using dirty, non surgical tools, a burdizzo that crushes the spermatic cord or by attacking a small rubber ring that cuts the blood supply off from the calf's testicles killing them over the course of weeks.

None of the procedures, despite the severity requires the practitioner to use any form of pain killer or anesthetic. Therefore at a very young age these animals are forced to endure great pain and suffering as they are placed away from their mothers in fattening pens.

Slaughter:

Sadly, whether in the meat or dairy industry, all cows end their lives in the slaughter-house. All are used for meat of varying grades and all all subjected to the same inhumane conditions.

They suffer under the same regulations and conditions during transport as pigs. The same mistreatment during slaughter as chickens.

The only way to truly end this suffering is to abstain from contributing to any part of these aggressively inhumane industries.

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