Vegetarian/Vegan Thread - Page 9

Most people agree that it is wrong to inflict pain or suffering on animals for no good reason. Most people agree that hens kept in battery cages are suffering. But what about free range? Barn laid? Organic? You would assume that under these systems the hens live happy lives out in open fields, lives free of suffering, and they only die naturally from old age. This image is reinforced by cartoons of hens roaming freely, and people talking lots about the problems of battery farms, but not about the problems with free range.

In order to get laying hens you need fertile eggs. Half of these hatch into male roosters. Becasue roosters don't lay eggs, they are of no use to the egg industry. The day-old-chicks are either gassed with gasses such as carbon dioxide or are killed by instantaneous fragmentation.1 So everytime a free range farmer buys a laying hen, a male rooster is killed. Surplus or 'substandard' chicks are also killed. 2

Free range hens may have their beaks trimmed 3 with a hot blade or laser when they are less then ten days old. Debeaking is an extremely painful process that is done without any pain killers. Debeaked hens show forms of neuroma indicating chronic pain.4

According to the Brambell Committee, a group of veterinarians and other experts appointed by the British Parliament: “Between the horn and bone is a thin layer of highly sensitive soft tissue, resembling the quick of the human nail. The hot knife used in debeaking cuts through this complex of horn, bone and sensitive tissue causing severe pain.”

Even free range farms may send their entire flocks to the slaughterhouse when they start laying fewer eggs 3. Sometimes the farmer may kill the hens on farm, by holding the bird upside down and twisting their neck 5.

Organic, free-range and cage-free hens all end their lives at the same slaughterhouses as battery hens.

When they stop producing eggs, the chickens are caught by their legs, thrown into crates, and transported to the slaughterhouse where each bird is shackled upside down to a chain. As the chain moves along, the chicken’s head dips into a waterbath stunner. Workers then slice across the back of the chicken’s neck 6. The waterbath stunner does not actually kill the bird. Occasionally a bird may regain consciousness, but be unable to move because the spinal cord has been cut – and the slaughterhouse worker will not be able to tell that the chicken is awake and aware. Some chickens die miserably through having their heads pulled off by the “automatic head puller” machine while still conscious 7.

All egg, regardless of whether they are free-range or battery farmed cause hens to suffer and die. Male hens are killed by instantaneous fragmentation, birds may be debeaked and female hens are slaughtered when they stop producing eggs.

We all agree that it is wrong to cause unneccesary suffering and death to nonhuman animals. At the least, this must mean that it is wrong to kill for reasons of pleasure, convencience or habit. Using eggs, and other animal products, causes suffering and death to billions of nonhuman animals. And our only justification for using these products is that we derive pleasure from how they taste, look or feel, it is convenient to use them or it is habit to use them. This is not a good justification.

Even in the most 'humane' conditions, animals are still treated as nothing more than economic commodities, nothing more then property. Animals status as property presents many moral and practical problems, and this property status is reinforced when you buy animal products. Click here to learn more.

Free range eggs are not the solution. The solution, is veganism. Vegans do not wear, consume or use animal products such as meat, dairy, eggs, honey, leather, fur and silk. Going vegan means that you will not participate in the suffering and death of more than 52 billion animals every year 8.

References:

1) Animal welfare (layer hens) code of welfare 2005, 3.1 Hatchery Management

2) Animal welfare (broiler chickens: fully housed) code of welfare 2003

3) "Bio Eggs Product Standards" Eco Egg Company Limited, May 14, 2006

4) W. Temple and T.M. Foster, "The welfare status of egg production in New Zealand" Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production 53 (1993): 215-217

5) "Choosing Chooks. Part 2" New Zealand lifestyle farmer April 2006 30-31

6) Animal welfare (commercial slaughter) code of welfare 2006: draft code of welfare 10 (Wellington: NAWAC, 2006)

7) N.G. Gregory, J.K. Robins and T.A. Stewart, "Blood spots in chicken meat after slaughter: a humane alternative" New Zealand veterinary journal 47 (1999): 77-78

8) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2003

Dairy cows are continually kept pregnant and lactating and their babies are taken away from them when they are only two days old. The life of a dairy cow is not as natural as you might think, especially considering that 80 percent of dairy cows are made pregnant through artificial insemination. 1

The only way for a cow, like any other mammal, to produce milk is for the cow to have a baby. The milk produced by cows is naturally meant for baby calves; however, because people want to drink this milk, the baby calves are taken away from their mothers when they are only a few days old. 1 Cows are extremely maternal animals and both the mother cow and the baby calf suffer terribly from being separated at such a young age. One study showed that calves with no interaction with their mothers or only interaction through a fence, "induced significant increases in walking, butting, urinating, and vocalizing"2. In fact, one cow missed her baby so much that she broke out of her paddock and trekked through 8 kilometers of paddocks and rivers to find her baby 3. On dairy farms, mother cows can be heard bellowing out wildly trying to find their babies as well as running after the cattle trucks that take their babies to separate farms.

The baby calves lives are then decided by their gender. If the calf is male then he is taken away to be raised and slaughtered for meat. Because of this the NZ dairy industry contributes to the death of more than 1 million male calves every year. 4 That’s one death every 20 seconds. In fact, 55 percent of all beef in New Zealand supermarkets comes directly from the dairy industry. 5 These male calves are transported to separate meat farms or slaughterhouses, where they will never see their mothers again. Transported as young as 4 days of age, they endure cold and hunger, without food for up to 30 hours, while struggling to maintain their footing in the cattle truck.

There is no legal requirement for calves to be fed before being transported. A 1998 study 6 looked at 7,169 young male calves who arrived at a Wanganui abattoir (slaughterhouse) after a 7-hour journey in cattle trucks. The research found that 27 arrived in an 'unacceptable condition' - lying down, unable to walk, extremely weak or seriously injured. A further 4 percent were 'marginal' with a 'wet umbilicus, were hollow sided, apparently immature, or weak and slow and unsteady on their feet'. While these numbers may not seem large, the fact that a million male calves are slaughtered every year means that thousands probably arrive at slaughterhouses in critical condition, and tens of thousands are seriously unwell after the journey.

If the calf is female she will either be kept as a herd replacement, living in the same conditions as her mother, or she will be sent to a slaughterhouse or killed on farm.



In the 6-8 days after calving, cows lose weight and condition rapidly, as their bodies consume themselves to provide milk for absent calves 7, so

that humans can buy milkshakes to wash down burgers made from the bodies of those same calves. Researchers have estimated that a modern dairy cow is under as much strain as a cyclist on Tour de France. 8

Naturally cows can live to be up to 25 years old. But on dairy farms they are slaughtered when they are only 5-7 years old meaning that most dairy cows live less than a third of their natural life span. In fact, 20 percent of New Zealand's dairy cows are killed every year, because they are considered too old or they fail to become pregnant. 9 Cows form strong relationships and spend most of their time in 'friendship groups' of 2-4 cows who lick and groom each other. 10 This annual slaughter is very distressing to their friends in the herd.

Cows are forced onto trucks (in the same way baby male calves are transported) that take them to be slaughtered. When they arrive at the slaughterhouse, they are held together in stunning pens where they are stunned with a captive bolt pistol. They are then shackled by the leg, lifted up and have their throats slit. After the blood has been drained away, the cows body is used for cheap meat and pet food. 11

Because dairy cows are milked so excessively, NZ dairy cows have increased risks of teat diseases like mastitis. Symptoms of mastitis include include hot, swollen, acutely painful udders, fever, and loss of appetite. When a cow has mastitis her udder may become so inflamed that it is as hard as a stone, and blood bubbles into her milk, which becomes clotted and watery 12. Severe cases of mastitis can kill a cow in less then 24 hours. Modern dairy cows have been bred for milk production to the point where the teats of their enlarged udders dangle close to the ground, and become muddy and infected. 13

Although tail docking is not as common in cattle as in sheep, the tails of some dairy cows are amputated using a tight rubber ring, or a searing iron, in order to “improve comfort for milking personnel, and enhance milking efficiency,” 13 or to try and stop mastitis. However, the scientific evidence for mastitis prevention is inconclusive. A US study by researcher Dan Weary found no health benefits in chopping off cows’ tails. 14

Amputation is very painful, as the cow’s tail is richly supplied with nerves and blood vessels. Cows need their tails to swat away insects, and possibly to communicate with other cows. Docked cows try in vain to flick their tail stumps, and are likely to suffer from neuropathic pain, similar to the “phantom limb” pain experienced by human amputees. 16 Cattle may also be branded for identification.

The RNZSPCA is opposed both to the docking of the tails of dairy cows, and to the use of hot branding.

Calves are often dehorned to prevent damage or bruising to their carcass during slaughter. Calf's may be dehorned with bolt cutters, scoop dehorners or a butchers saw. This causes pain, bleeding and exposure of the frontal sinuses in older animals. 13 The pain can last 6 hours after dehorning. 15 Dehorning is often done without the use of anaesthetics.

In addition to having distinct personalities, cows are very intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time.

Animal behaviorists have found that cows interact in complex ways, developing friendships over time, sometimes holding grudges against cows who treat them badly and choosing leaders based upon intelligence. They have complex emotions as well and even have the ability to worry about the future.

Researchers have found that cows can not only figure out problems, they also enjoy the challenge and get excited when they find a solution. In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. The researchers then measured their brainwaves. Professor Broom said that ‘The brainwaves showed the cows excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,’

Cows can also learn how to push a lever to operate a drinking fountain when they’re thirsty or press a button with their head to release food when they’re hungry. Like humans they quickly learn to avoid things that cause pain like electric fences. In fact if just one cow in the herd is shocked by an electric fence, the rest of the herd will learn from that and will avoid the fence in the future.

Grandmother cows often help their daughters with mothering duties, but one cow named Olivia wanted no part of that. She never left her calf’s side, and she ignored her mother’s offers to help groom him. Offended, her mother finally marched off to another field to graze with her friends and never communicated to her daughter again.

Cows can also remember and hold grudges against people who have hurt them or their family members.

Sources:

1) "Pasture-based dairying the New Zealand way", New Zealand Agritech

2) "A note on behavioral responses to brief cow-calf separation and reunion in cattle" Journal of veterinary behavior, (2007): 10-14

3) SAFE Humane resource 'Animals and Us'

4) "Beef cattle productivity from pasture" Agritech

5) "Statistics", Beef New Zealand

6) Stafford, K.J., “The physical state and plasma biochemical profile of young calves on arrival at a slaughter plant,” New Zealand veterinary journal 49.4 (2001): 142-149

7) “Weight loss after calving,” New Zealand dairy farmer 80.12 (2005): 73.

8) J. Webster, Animal welfare: a cool eye towards Eden (Oxford: Blackwell Science, 1994)

9) McQueen, Robert J. [et al.], “The WEKA machine learning workbench: its application to a real world agricultural database,” University of Waikato, Dept. of Computer Science

10) Leake, Jonathon, “The secret life of moody cows,” Sunday star times Jan. 27, 2005: 13.

11) "Truth or Dairy", AAA Leaflet

12) S.M. McDougall, “Prevalence of clinical mastitis in 38 Waikato dairy herds in early lactation,” New Zealand veterinary journal 47 (1999): 143-149.

13) Animal welfare (painful husbandry procedures) code of welfare 2005

14) "Scientists let the tail wag their research,” Chronicle of higher education 46 (2000): 22.

15) C. McMeekan et al., “Effects of a local anaesthetic and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesic on the behavioural responses of calves to dehorning,” New Zealand veterinary journal 47 (1999): 92-96

16) J. Ladewig and L.R. Matthews, “The importance of physiological measurements in farm animal stress research,” Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production 52 (1992): 77-9