One of the biggest debates in the food
industry is around the cruelty to livestock. Vegans, vegetarians,
and animal rights activists, often condemn the livestock industry as
being cruel. Livestock keepers, and those involved with livestock,
often deny any cruelty. In a case of one extreme to the other with
neither one willing to bend it is hard to see sense of it all.
I feel it would be better if the
livestock industry were honest that some cruelty does exist and that
there may be room for improvement. It should also be noted that a
lot of the cruelty is related to keeping costs low and this is in
fact being pushed by the consumer.
It should also be noted that most of
the incidences of cruelty are not simply the result of a farmer
wanting to cause pain and suffering simply for the sake of causing
pain and suffering to the animal. While this sort of thing does
occur on occasion it is rarely by the farmer, or owner, of the
livestock, and is more often done by employees.
Since I keep sheep I have taken a part of an article on cruelty to livestock and reposted it here with a link to the whole article below.
"Sheep are one of the few livestock
animals not commonly kept in a factory type setting, they usually are
kept on pasture had have a fairly ideal life, although often cut
short for lambs headed to slaughter.
Their lives are not without some
cruelty, the worst of which is mulesing. Mulesing is common in
Australia and done to Merino sheep. The lambs are hung upside down
by their feet and a dinner sized chunk of their rump is cut off
without painkillers or antiseptics.
Docking of a lamb's tail is not
particularly cruel, in fact because of the social uses of a dog's
tail, docking a dog's tail can be considered more cruel than dockinga lamb's tail with the note that docking lamb's tails is done to keep
flies away from the dirty tail. Flies can cause fly strike and can
kill a lamb. Mulesing is done for the same reason but takes off the
rump of the lamb.
Pregnant Karakul ewes are reported to
be kicked to induce abortions or early labor. Others are slaughtered
right before lambing so their fetal lamb can be harvested for its
pelt."
For the record I am not a vegetarian
and I am not against the meat industry as a whole, but I strongly
dislike some of the “factory farm” methods of keeping other
livestock, such as chickens, swine, and dairy cattle.
Cruelty can be reduced and one way of
reducing it is to spread awareness to the consumer so they demand
better treatment of farm animals and become more knowledgeable about
where the meat they buy comes from.
Please use the comments area to share your opinions on cruelty in the livestock industry and how we can improve things.
