Notes on factory farm feedlots

My previous two sections have been referring to a passage from the section "Beef cattle on the range". Of course, not all beef cattle are raised on the range, and I think the primary moral objection that some people have to factory farming is the conditions in which animals are confined for most of their lives. For example, I chanced upon another paper yesterday doing a Google search for "morality eating meat". It is a paper by Mylan Engel, Jr., titled, "The Immorality of Eating Meat"1. It describes various factory farming procedures, and includes the (US) statistic that 61 percent of beef cattle are confined in factory farm feedlots2. So beef cattle raised on the range are in the minority to begin with, and we should really be looking at factory farm feedlots.

Here is a list of the basic poor conditions under which the animals suffer3:

  1. They cannot move about.
  2. The surfaces on which they must stand produce chronic foot and leg injuries.
  3. They must stand in their own waste.
  4. Their feed may contain:

    1. Growth hormones;
    2. The ground-up remains of dead diseased animals (unfit for human consumption);
    3. Cement dust to to promote rapid weight gain; and
    4. The animals' own feces;


Virtually all of the animals' basic instinctual urges are frustrated, including to4:

  1. Nurse;
  2. Stretch;
  3. Move around;
  4. Root;
  5. Groom;
  6. Build nests;
  7. Rut;
  8. Establish social orders;
  9. Select mates;
  10. Copulate;
  11. Procreate; and
  12. Rear offspring.


The boredom and stress this causes in the animals results in 5:

  1. A compromise in their immune systems;
  2. "Stereotypies" (i.e., stress- and boredom-induced, neurotic repetitive behaviors); and
  3. Cannibalism.

Factory farms combat these responses in the following ways6:

  1. Feeding a constant diet of antibiotics.
  2. "Debeaking" birds using a hot blade that slices through the sensitive horn of the beak leaving blisters in the mouth.
  3. Amputating birds' toes using the same hot-knife machine.
  4. "Dubbing" (surgically removing the combs and wattles of male chickens and turkeys).
  5. Tail docking.
  6. Branding.
  7. Dehorning.
  8. Ear-tagging.
  9. Ear-clipping.
  10. Teeth-pulling.
  11. Castration.
  12. Ovariectomy.

In the interests of "cost-cutting", all the above surgical procedures are performed without anaesthetic.

Notes


1Louis P. Pojman ed., The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.856-889.
2Ibid, p.866.
3Ibid, p.862.
4Ibid.
5Ibid, pp.862-863.
6Ibid.

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