FARM ANIMAL HEALTH AND WELFARE CONCERNS: SYNOPSIS

Caged Laying Hens:  Extreme overcrowding, lack of movement induced osteoporosis, bone fractures, foot lesions from wire floor, feather-picking and cannibalism.

Broiler Chickens: Extreme overcrowding, lameness, breast blisters, feather picking and cannibalism, ‘keel-over’ heart-failure from rapid growth.  Eye problems, including blindness, from poor ventilation.

Penned Piglets:  Overcrowding, boredom, tail-biting, cannibalism, lameness and foot lesions from a life on concrete slatted floors.  Circulation and joint problems from rapid growth and  large body mass . Chronic respiratory problems from poor ventilation.

Breeding Sows in crates: Extreme physical constraint, lameness, arthritis, boredom and stereotypic behaviors indicative of stress and distress.

Veal Calves in crates: Extreme physical constraint, social deprivation, iron-deficient diet causing anemia and weakness.

Feedlot Beef Cattle: Exposure-lack of shade and shelter, lameness and foot rot, liver disease from improper ‘fattening/finishing’ diets and lack of roughage.

Confined Dairy Cows: lack of exercise related lameness, metabolic, and liver diseases from high energy/concentrate diets and lack of roughage.

All the above concentrated animal feeding operations cause stress, distress, and increased disease susceptibility especially to enteric and respiratory infections, and to udder/mammary gland infections in dairy cows.

The following procedures need to be addressed and where appropriate, either phased out, or only the most humane methods permitted: Castrating, branding, and dehorning cattle without anesthetic; hot-iron de-beaking of chickens; disposal of unwanted chickens & pre-slaughter collecting and handling of poultry; tail docking and castration of piglets and lambs; tail docking of dairy cows; treatment of unwanted ‘bobby’ calves and ‘downer cows;’ and of sick and injured poultry and piglets. Use of the ‘Stock-still’ electrical immobilization of cattle should be prohibited. Humane methods for the mass ‘depopulating/killing of  diseased livestock and poultry also need to be implemented.

Livestock and poultry transportation, handling, and slaughter methods need significant improvements in most counties.

 Dairy and beef cattle fed rations high in cereal grains are prone to acidosis, digestive and metabolic problems, and lameness from laminitis. Such diets create ideal conditions for the proliferation of E. coli 0157, thus putting consumers at risk (also from crops contaminated with infected manure and slurry run-off). Feeding a more natural, grass or hay-based diet results in a drastic reduction in E.coli 0157 within a few days.

Cruel, intensive confinement systems of livestock and poultry production, called CAFOs---concentrated animal feeding operations, are a legacy of our inhumanity. The price of CAFOs include major public health problems associated with the wholesale use of antibiotics to help these animals grow and be productive and stay alive, leading to the rise of highly resistant strains of bacteria. They cause widespread air, surface and groundwater pollution. World wide, the livestock industry is the leading human-created cause of climate change/global warming.

Produce from organically certified, and free-range animals, are generally more humanely derived, and with less environmental harm and drug-dependence than similar produce from CAFOs.