In the age of factory farming, how do we support humane practices?

Almost anyone who has heard of factory farming is against the way it treats animals. 90% of farmed animals globally live in factory farms so almost every purchase of animal products now funds these cruel practices. How might we support ethical and humane practices in animal agriculture?

Let’s take chickens as an example for this topic. Contrary to popular belief, they are far from stupid. They are self-aware and are capable of understanding what happens to them and empathising with others. They show cognitive abilities beyond that of young human children, which current farming practices do not acknowledge at all.

Standard practices today

This section contains some graphic descriptions but is crucial in understanding what we support.

• Trapping them in battery cages or small spaces where they rarely have enough space to even extend their wings.

• Mutilating part of their beaks without anaesthetic even though beaks are very sensitive organs with several nerve endings.

• Selectively breeding hens to produce 30 times more eggs in a year than their bodies can endure. The loss of nutrients causes broken bones, infections, and other severe health issues.

• Discarding unproductive hens ASAP. When hens can no longer lay eggs, they are killed. Male chicks cannot produce eggs so they are either thrown in a grinder fully conscious or suffocated to death.

Once again, this is the industry standard - grinding up baby chicks alive.

The truth about cage-free and free-range chickens

Many consumers who buy free-range eggs do so for animal welfare reasons. However, welfare claims are often purposely misleading to ease the conscience of consumers into buying these products.

Even RSPCA-assured ‘free range’ only means that the chickens are not caged. Instead, they are kept in barns with up to thousands of other chickens without exposure to any natural light, living in their own excrement and the stench of ammonia. They are confined with so many other chickens, that they develop heart problems and severe behavioural issues. So many of them end up crippled too because they are made to grow faster than their bones can adapt. The video footage from a ‘higher welfare’ broiler chicken farm speaks for itself.

In the ‘higher welfare’ egg-laying chicken farms, hens are still bred to lay far more eggs than their bodies can handle, still have their beaks mutilated, still killed once they stop laying eggs, and male chicks are still thrown in a grinder or gassed to death soon after birth.

This is not a case of a few bad apples — this is the overwhelming majority. The truth is that when we use animals to make profits, their welfare becomes the last priority.

The ideal egg farm

If we can’t trust welfare labels from large institutions like the RSPCA, how do we find the most humanely produced eggs? Let’s first figure out what we are looking for — what would be the best ways to produce eggs?

1. Open fields for hens to roam
   Hens have space to move around, socialise, and be mentally stimulated. With abundant space, the risk of disease spreading is also not a concern. But is it a viable business? They are ultimately being used as commodities, and if each commodity takes up so much land, it becomes less financially viable and more environmentally damaging.

2. Not selectively breeding hens
   Rejecting the current practice of selectively breeding hens to produce 300 eggs per year means that the hens have far fewer health issues. However, fewer eggs per hen would also drive up the prices of eggs. Would an industry that operates this way meet the demand of billions of people?

3. Taking care of the chickens till old age
   Keeping male chicks alive and feeding them till old age is not a trivial cost. Similarly, hens that no longer laying eggs are not making money for the farmer. Is any egg farm really going to operate this way?

Some egg farms are less inhumane than others, but none of them provide the quality of life that we actually expect from a humane farm. Is this really the best we can do?

“Humane”

We often discuss what is the most humane way to slaughter an animal but if we think about it, isn’t it an absurd question to begin with?

The first question should be: Do we need to slaughter?

[from thesaurus.com]

As Earthling Ed often says, think of synonyms for the word ‘humane’. Does unnecessary slaughter ever show benevolence, kindness, or mercy?

Welfare standards definitely alleviate some suffering and in a non-vegan world, pushing for corporate animal welfare commitments is crucial. However, as consumers, it’s important to realise that the most humane choice we can make is not to support animal agriculture at all.

The choices we have

Animal agriculture is ultimately a consumer-driven industry operating on the laws of demand and supply. Hence, the choices we make three times a day have a far more significant impact than most of us realise.

We have three choices when we’re in a supermarket:

• To buy “standard” animal products

• To buy “higher welfare” animal products

• To buy plant-based products

Buying the “higher welfare” animal products may be preferable to the “standard” ones, but labels are misleading and and animals are still mistreated.

We can have a much bigger positive impact by choosing plant-based foods more often. Less demand for animal products means that fewer animals are bred and killed in the first place while the market for plant-based products grows.

Here’s how you can start making your diet more plant-based.