Fear and anxiety
Farm animals feel the emotions of fear and anxiety, which can cause stress and
suffering Fear and anxiety are responses that animals need for survival, to avoid and escape from dangerous situations. As with pain, the degree of fear that an animal experiences can be difficult to know with certainty. Fear may be a cause of great emotional distress to animals,possibly causing greater distress to animals than it does to humans. Animal protection laws and common sense agree that fear involves the experience of an unpleasant emotion and is a cause of suffering. Animal behaviour scientists attempt to measure fear by studying both the physiological responses that produce ‘stress hormones’ and how the animals behave in response to frightening or anxiety-inducing things and events, both short-term and long-term. Outward signs of fear may be quite different in different animals and different circumstances - for example resulting in attack, in flight or in immobility. Fear-inducing factors have been categorised as: unfamiliar objects or animals or unexpected events; innate fear, such as fear of isolation; learned fears, such as the expectation of attack or pain; and signs of fear in others. Fear, as well as pain, can lead to damaging stress In the case of farm animals, fear seems to be a clear indication of their awareness and understanding of their world; they need to be able to remember past events, places and individuals (animals and people) and distinguish those that they have good reason to fear. Examples: How we know farm animals feel fear and anxiety 1.) Young piglets separated from their mother give distinctive and frequent squeals to call her, sometimes try to jump out of their pen and in some cases appear to ‘give up on life’. 2.) The heart rate of sheep increases by 20 beats per minute when they are unable to see the rest of their flock and increases by 84 bpm when a man with a dog approaches. 3.) Female pigs that show a high level of fear of their stockmen are 2-1/2 times less likely to become pregnant than pigs that are not afraid. Pigs, calves and cows try to keep away from humans after they have experience of stockmen who hit, kick, prod, shock or threaten them. 4.) Pigs can be severely stressed by anxiety and fear caused by being put with unfamiliar pigs and by human handling. They can collapse and even die as a result. |
Frustration
Farm animals feel emotionally frustrated when they are prevented from carrying out natural behaviour or feeding
Scientific observations and experiments show that farm animals feel frustration when they are prevented from carrying out natural behaviour that they are strongly motivated to do, or when they are prevented from getting something pleasant (such as food) that they expected. As with the emotions we have looked at above, animals’ responses to frustration show that they have intentions and expectations, in other words that they are aware of what they want to do and how they expect the world to be. Scientists have studied farm animals’ feelings of frustration by observing what animals do when they are prevented from performing natural behaviour, such as building a nest, foraging, exploring, or eating. They have also studied the effect of frustration on levels of stress hormones.
Examples: How we know animals feel frustration
1.) Dairy cows showed an increased percentage of the whites of their eyes, known to be a sign of frustration, when their 4-day old calves were temporarily removed from them. Hungry cows that were prevented from eating grass that they could see and smell showed their frustration by rolling their tongues, shaking their heads and opening their eyes abnormally wide, according to researchers at the Agricultural University of Norway.
2.) Hens have a particular ‘frustration’ call (the gakel call) when they are thwarted in getting to food, water, a dust bath or a nest box. When hens were trained to expect food in a particular situation and then the food was withheld, the hens with the highest expectations showed most frustration.
3.) Boars were deliberately sexually frustrated, after they had been trained to mount an artificial sow. This increased the levels of endorphin (a natural opioid associated with stress) in their blood and made them restless, indicating a ‘negative emotional state’.
4.) The breeding birds used to produce meat chicks are kept on a very restricted diet as they grow up and only spend a few minutes a day eating their ration. They show boredom and frustration by hyperactivity, aggression, stereotyped pacing before feeding times, and pecking at non-food objects.
5.) Female pigs confined in farrowing crates (for giving birth to their piglets) have higher levels of stress hormones (ACTH and cortisol) compared to sows that have enough space for nest building activity.
Scientific observations and experiments show that farm animals feel frustration when they are prevented from carrying out natural behaviour that they are strongly motivated to do, or when they are prevented from getting something pleasant (such as food) that they expected. As with the emotions we have looked at above, animals’ responses to frustration show that they have intentions and expectations, in other words that they are aware of what they want to do and how they expect the world to be. Scientists have studied farm animals’ feelings of frustration by observing what animals do when they are prevented from performing natural behaviour, such as building a nest, foraging, exploring, or eating. They have also studied the effect of frustration on levels of stress hormones.
Examples: How we know animals feel frustration
1.) Dairy cows showed an increased percentage of the whites of their eyes, known to be a sign of frustration, when their 4-day old calves were temporarily removed from them. Hungry cows that were prevented from eating grass that they could see and smell showed their frustration by rolling their tongues, shaking their heads and opening their eyes abnormally wide, according to researchers at the Agricultural University of Norway.
2.) Hens have a particular ‘frustration’ call (the gakel call) when they are thwarted in getting to food, water, a dust bath or a nest box. When hens were trained to expect food in a particular situation and then the food was withheld, the hens with the highest expectations showed most frustration.
3.) Boars were deliberately sexually frustrated, after they had been trained to mount an artificial sow. This increased the levels of endorphin (a natural opioid associated with stress) in their blood and made them restless, indicating a ‘negative emotional state’.
4.) The breeding birds used to produce meat chicks are kept on a very restricted diet as they grow up and only spend a few minutes a day eating their ration. They show boredom and frustration by hyperactivity, aggression, stereotyped pacing before feeding times, and pecking at non-food objects.
5.) Female pigs confined in farrowing crates (for giving birth to their piglets) have higher levels of stress hormones (ACTH and cortisol) compared to sows that have enough space for nest building activity.
Pleasure and play
Farm animals feel pleasure when playing or carrying out natural behaviour
If farm animals suffer from negative emotions, they must also enjoy positive emotions from the pleasure of eating, interacting with others in the social group, and carrying out natural behaviour such as foraging and exercising. Although little research is devoted to these positive aspects of farm animals’ lives, farmers can tell us about the apparent enjoyment of cows ‘turned out’ to grass in the spring, the eagerness of chickens kept in small huts to run out to graze and forage in the morning, the playfulness of growing pigs moved from a barren, crowded pen to an outside enclosure. Many of the skills that farm animals need in their adult lives are partly learned by play activities as young animals - these include moving or manipulating objects, chasing, fighting without causing injury, advancing and retreating and acrobatics. Foals devote 75% of their activity to play.
Even isolated calves find inanimate objects (or a human or other animal) to head-butt in play. The play of calves (and sometimes of adult cattle) includes prancing, kicking, pawing, snorting, running, and mounting others. It may start with two calves and a whole group will then join in. After one month of age, lambs start to spend a lot of time with other lambs, and their play includes leaps, ‘dances’, and group chasing, involving at least 3 lambs. From 2 weeks on, play is an important part of piglets’ activity, often in the form of play fights at first, and later involving mostly chasing, gamboling and exploration of the environment. Animals play more when they have enriched environments, better weather, better food, when they meet other young animals and when they are let out of confinement. Play has some special characteristics, common to sentient animals.
It respects rules; the animal must want to play; play is started by some signal meaning ‘this is play’; it avoids injuring play partners; the ‘playing mood’ is transmitted to other animals; the activity seems to be pleasurable to those taking part; play actions are exaggerated, repetitive and there is a rapid change of roles (e.g. chaser and chased); the ‘playing’ emotion does not include real anger or fear. None of these characteristics corresponds to serious activities such as self-defence, flight, searching for food or predation. The fact that animals clearly enjoy playing is a hallmark of their complex mental life, and involves the ability to understand another’s mood, to cooperate and to ‘pretend’. Scientists believe that play ‘develops cognitive skills necessary for behavioural adaptability, flexibility, inventiveness, or versatility’.56 Play may also enable animals to ‘develop flexible… emotional responses to unexpected events …and to cope emotionally with unexpectedly stressful situations’. It has been suggested that play involves an emotional state known as ‘having fun’ and that ‘the ability to experience the complex feeling of ‘having fun’ may require a richly developed cognitive system’.
Examples: Pleasure and play
1.) Young pigs who are given roomy pens with peat flooring and straw are more active and playful, including frisking, scampering and rolling in the litter material,compared to pigs kept in barren pens
2.) Young meat chickens (broilers) become more active if they are given straw bales that they can investigate and climb on.
3.) Young dairy cows enjoy being able to solve a problem. They showed excited behaviour and their heart rates increased when they succeeded in learning how to open a gate to get to food.
4.) Lambs can be seen chasing and gambling together in the fields in spring.
If farm animals suffer from negative emotions, they must also enjoy positive emotions from the pleasure of eating, interacting with others in the social group, and carrying out natural behaviour such as foraging and exercising. Although little research is devoted to these positive aspects of farm animals’ lives, farmers can tell us about the apparent enjoyment of cows ‘turned out’ to grass in the spring, the eagerness of chickens kept in small huts to run out to graze and forage in the morning, the playfulness of growing pigs moved from a barren, crowded pen to an outside enclosure. Many of the skills that farm animals need in their adult lives are partly learned by play activities as young animals - these include moving or manipulating objects, chasing, fighting without causing injury, advancing and retreating and acrobatics. Foals devote 75% of their activity to play.
Even isolated calves find inanimate objects (or a human or other animal) to head-butt in play. The play of calves (and sometimes of adult cattle) includes prancing, kicking, pawing, snorting, running, and mounting others. It may start with two calves and a whole group will then join in. After one month of age, lambs start to spend a lot of time with other lambs, and their play includes leaps, ‘dances’, and group chasing, involving at least 3 lambs. From 2 weeks on, play is an important part of piglets’ activity, often in the form of play fights at first, and later involving mostly chasing, gamboling and exploration of the environment. Animals play more when they have enriched environments, better weather, better food, when they meet other young animals and when they are let out of confinement. Play has some special characteristics, common to sentient animals.
It respects rules; the animal must want to play; play is started by some signal meaning ‘this is play’; it avoids injuring play partners; the ‘playing mood’ is transmitted to other animals; the activity seems to be pleasurable to those taking part; play actions are exaggerated, repetitive and there is a rapid change of roles (e.g. chaser and chased); the ‘playing’ emotion does not include real anger or fear. None of these characteristics corresponds to serious activities such as self-defence, flight, searching for food or predation. The fact that animals clearly enjoy playing is a hallmark of their complex mental life, and involves the ability to understand another’s mood, to cooperate and to ‘pretend’. Scientists believe that play ‘develops cognitive skills necessary for behavioural adaptability, flexibility, inventiveness, or versatility’.56 Play may also enable animals to ‘develop flexible… emotional responses to unexpected events …and to cope emotionally with unexpectedly stressful situations’. It has been suggested that play involves an emotional state known as ‘having fun’ and that ‘the ability to experience the complex feeling of ‘having fun’ may require a richly developed cognitive system’.
Examples: Pleasure and play
1.) Young pigs who are given roomy pens with peat flooring and straw are more active and playful, including frisking, scampering and rolling in the litter material,compared to pigs kept in barren pens
2.) Young meat chickens (broilers) become more active if they are given straw bales that they can investigate and climb on.
3.) Young dairy cows enjoy being able to solve a problem. They showed excited behaviour and their heart rates increased when they succeeded in learning how to open a gate to get to food.
4.) Lambs can be seen chasing and gambling together in the fields in spring.
The social behaviour of farm animals
In natural conditions, farm animals recognise, understand and communicate with
each other in order to live in organised social groups
The social behaviour of farm animals is an important aspect of their sentience. It underlines their ability to think and also the significance of their social and emotional bonds. Farm animals in natural conditions have quite complex social lives and social conventions. Living in groups requires awareness and understanding of the behaviour of others, and the ability to manage social interactions. It involves recognition of different individuals (including those of other species, such as humans), communication, selecting mates and looking after young. Animal behaviour scientists have studied and compared the social lives of farm animals in natural, semi natural and intensive farming conditions. In spite of thousands of years of domestic use, and decades of intensive breeding and farming, experts agree that the basic behaviour patterns and motivation of farm animals has changed little compared to their wild ancestors. Farmed pigs and chickens can revert to wild behaviour without difficulty.
Social groups
In natural conditions farm animals live in social groups of familiar animals
Cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens naturally live in herds or flocks. They coordinate their activities of moving pasture, resting, feeding, or grazing. They usually form social hierarchies, and in free-ranging conditions these are maintained by some animals avoiding or being submissive to others. The animals also may form friendship pairs. Scientists do not understand in detail how these social arrangements are formed, but the group’s dominance hierarchy may be the result ofa number of social ‘agreements’ between individual animals.
each other in order to live in organised social groups
The social behaviour of farm animals is an important aspect of their sentience. It underlines their ability to think and also the significance of their social and emotional bonds. Farm animals in natural conditions have quite complex social lives and social conventions. Living in groups requires awareness and understanding of the behaviour of others, and the ability to manage social interactions. It involves recognition of different individuals (including those of other species, such as humans), communication, selecting mates and looking after young. Animal behaviour scientists have studied and compared the social lives of farm animals in natural, semi natural and intensive farming conditions. In spite of thousands of years of domestic use, and decades of intensive breeding and farming, experts agree that the basic behaviour patterns and motivation of farm animals has changed little compared to their wild ancestors. Farmed pigs and chickens can revert to wild behaviour without difficulty.
Social groups
In natural conditions farm animals live in social groups of familiar animals
Cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens naturally live in herds or flocks. They coordinate their activities of moving pasture, resting, feeding, or grazing. They usually form social hierarchies, and in free-ranging conditions these are maintained by some animals avoiding or being submissive to others. The animals also may form friendship pairs. Scientists do not understand in detail how these social arrangements are formed, but the group’s dominance hierarchy may be the result ofa number of social ‘agreements’ between individual animals.
Cattle
A few remaining herds of feral cattle have been studied, such as the white Chillingham cattle, which have had minimal contact with humans for 700 years. Cattle generally live in a small herd of both male and female animals, generally up to 20 per group. The herd will defend itself and its calves. Young adult males sometimes form small groups and older males often are solitary except for the mating season. Cows would typically have one calf and one yearling with them. Although cattle are not territorial, they can have specific home ranges, which may be different for males and females. The home range is learned by calves at an early age. Under natural conditions, it would be rare for unknown animals to join the group.
There is a dominance hierarchy among groups of both males and females - in the case of females these can be stable for years. Cattle may be able to recognise and remember up to 50-70 individuals. Cattle groom each other (‘all grooming’) by licking the head, neck and shoulder area. They have preferred partners, which may be relatives, and they groom each other more the longer they have known each other. A special posture indicates asking to be licked. Grooming each other may reduce tension, reinforce social bonds and stabilise social relationships. In commercial conditions, if adult cows are temporarily separated from the herd they show their distress by restlessness and raised levels of a stress hormone, cortisol. Animals seem to be less stressed by novel events (such as a loud noise) if they are with known partners and also seem to be aware of the partner’s emotional state; for example they may be less willing to feed if their partner is stressed.
There is a dominance hierarchy among groups of both males and females - in the case of females these can be stable for years. Cattle may be able to recognise and remember up to 50-70 individuals. Cattle groom each other (‘all grooming’) by licking the head, neck and shoulder area. They have preferred partners, which may be relatives, and they groom each other more the longer they have known each other. A special posture indicates asking to be licked. Grooming each other may reduce tension, reinforce social bonds and stabilise social relationships. In commercial conditions, if adult cows are temporarily separated from the herd they show their distress by restlessness and raised levels of a stress hormone, cortisol. Animals seem to be less stressed by novel events (such as a loud noise) if they are with known partners and also seem to be aware of the partner’s emotional state; for example they may be less willing to feed if their partner is stressed.
Pigs
Pigs have been studied in the wild (wild boar) and also in groups of feral and free-ranging pigs. Scientists who have observed pigs in semi-natural conditions in the Edinburgh University ‘pig park’ consider that ‘The social behaviour of the domestic pig seems to resemble, in all important respects, that of the European wild boar, Sus scrofa, when the domestic [animal] is allowed to live in semi-natural conditions’. The basic social unit of the wild boar is quite small. It consists of the sow and her litter, which may join with others to form a group of 2-4 sows, with a hierarchy within the group. The sows are often related and unknown sows rarely join the group. The young of the previous year may stay with the sow and her newest litter until they are sexually mature at 8-10 months old. At the mating season the boar joins the family group temporarily and the young males leave. Free-ranging pigs maintain a home range with different sites for different activities, such as sleeping nests, wallows, feeding sites, dunging sites and rubbing sites.
The home range may be between 100 and 500 hectares (approximately 250-12 50 acres). Different groups of sows and offspring may share common territory, but groups keep their integrity and maintain a distance from each other when foraging. In the late afternoon the adults arrange or repair a communal nest, which is well sheltered and has good views outwards, and the young pigs join them there. Pigs often have special neighbours when foraging. Pigs who know each other greet by making nose-to-nose contact, while grunting, and groom each other if they know each other really well. Pigs may be able to recognise and remember up to 20-30 individuals. Experiments at the Scottish Agricultural College have shown that pigs confined in a group establish social stability by their understanding of each others behaviour and by working out which other pigs are more aggressive and dominant.
The home range may be between 100 and 500 hectares (approximately 250-12 50 acres). Different groups of sows and offspring may share common territory, but groups keep their integrity and maintain a distance from each other when foraging. In the late afternoon the adults arrange or repair a communal nest, which is well sheltered and has good views outwards, and the young pigs join them there. Pigs often have special neighbours when foraging. Pigs who know each other greet by making nose-to-nose contact, while grunting, and groom each other if they know each other really well. Pigs may be able to recognise and remember up to 20-30 individuals. Experiments at the Scottish Agricultural College have shown that pigs confined in a group establish social stability by their understanding of each others behaviour and by working out which other pigs are more aggressive and dominant.
Sheep
Wild or feral sheep who have been studied (such as Bighorn or Soay sheep) usually range in separate groups of females or of males, although young males may stay with females after puberty. Ram groups are usually quite small and some rams may roam alone. Ewe groups consist of mothers and daughters over several generations, but smaller subgroups may graze together. Groups are recorded as being between about 10 and 60 animals, with a minimum of about 4 to form a stable social group. The size of the range varies with season, with the summer range being up to 50 times larger. Knowledge of the range is learned by lambs and yearlings. The sheep can recognise their own group and neighbouring social groups and identify ‘foreign’ animals. Domestic sheep are very gregarious and often tend to stay within about 25 metres of another. Isolation from the group causes them stress. There is evidence from aerial photographs that sheep grazing at the edge of a flock keep themselves in a direction where they can see two other sheep at the outer range of their wide field of vision. Ewes prefer to have their own lamb as their nearest neighbour up to 70% of the time (lowland Suffolk ewes are less concerned to keep their lambs close than Black Face ewes, possibly because lowland sheep expect their lambs to meet fewer hazards). Detailed experiments on sheep by researchers in the UK, using both observation and recording of brain activity, have confirmed that sheep are very good at distinguishing between and remembering other animals.
The sheep remembered images of 50 sheep faces for up to 2 years. They can ‘remember and respond emotionally to individuals in their absence’ (for example, by calling in response to familiar faces, as they would do to members of their social group). They seem to have a ‘mental concept’ of familiar individuals, since they can recognise animals from their profiles after they have learned to recognise them from the front view. Their perception of others is also influenced by the emotional significance of what they see - whether it is a familiar sheep, a human or a dog (a potential threat). Ewes preferred the faces of ewes unless they were in oestrus, when they preferred ram faces. Researchers concluded that sheep have ‘a highly developed requirement for social interaction and therefore a sophisticated sense of social awareness’. When sheep are socially isolated, their fear and stress is reduced if they are shown pictures of the faces of familiar sheep. Their high-pitched protest calls, attempts to escape, heart rate and levels of stress hormones are all reduced by seeing familiar faces (pictures of goats or of triangles do not have the same effect).
The sheep remembered images of 50 sheep faces for up to 2 years. They can ‘remember and respond emotionally to individuals in their absence’ (for example, by calling in response to familiar faces, as they would do to members of their social group). They seem to have a ‘mental concept’ of familiar individuals, since they can recognise animals from their profiles after they have learned to recognise them from the front view. Their perception of others is also influenced by the emotional significance of what they see - whether it is a familiar sheep, a human or a dog (a potential threat). Ewes preferred the faces of ewes unless they were in oestrus, when they preferred ram faces. Researchers concluded that sheep have ‘a highly developed requirement for social interaction and therefore a sophisticated sense of social awareness’. When sheep are socially isolated, their fear and stress is reduced if they are shown pictures of the faces of familiar sheep. Their high-pitched protest calls, attempts to escape, heart rate and levels of stress hormones are all reduced by seeing familiar faces (pictures of goats or of triangles do not have the same effect).
Chickens
Chickens were domesticated from Red Jungle Fowl in south east Asia several thousand years ago. Jungle fowl live in a number of forested habitats where they can roost at night and have cover to protect their chicks. The home range may be 5 hectares (12.5 acres) in open forest or as low as half a hectare where food is plentiful. The group may move up to 23km to different habitats according to the season. Chickens in natural conditions live in quite small groups. Free-ranging flocks of jungle fowl live in mixed-sex flocks of 4-30 adults, in small male flocks and in groups of one male with a few hens. The birds in the group tend to stay close together and synchronise their activities such as foraging, resting and preening. They maintain contact with a ‘Ku’ call and they warn each other about danger. They fly to escape danger on the ground, to get over obstacles, or to roost and perch. Males help keep the group together by food calls and food-pecking to attract the females and may stay alert while the hens feed. Males also lead hens to investigate possible nest sites. Domestic hens can establish stable social hierarchies, which means that they recognise other birds and their relative status. Apart from this, they also seem to have preferred flock-mates. They prefer to be close to familiar birds and to avoid unfamiliar ones.
Family bonds
There is a strong emotional bond between farm animal parents and their young
Raising young is a vital activity for all animals. Because of this, the parent animals have evolved to be very highly motivated to carry out their natural maternal behaviour. The same is true of the bond between mother and young, which is vital for the survival of the young. Numbers of experiments and observations show that building a nest is very important to female pigs and to hens. This drive has an obvious survival value, since piglets are born very small and dependent, and both the mother hen and her eggs are vulnerable during incubation.
Hens
Domestic hens have essentially the same nesting behaviour as their wild relatives. To find a nest site, a hen may walk a considerable distance and explore several possible suitably enclosed sites, for example in thick vegetation, before she decides on one. She then scrapes a hollow and builds a raised edge to the nest before laying. Domestic hens take one or two hours to find a site and lay an egg. In natural conditions the hen would lay several eggs in the same nest and then stop laying and start incubating the clutch. The chicks start communicating with the hen and each other by peeping calls even before they are hatched. They call the hen to turn the eggs or return to incubating and they also respond to her behaviour and to her own calls. On the day of hatching, the chicks explore and peck at potential food, but they need the hen for protection and for learning about suitable food sources. The chicks ‘imprint’ on the hen on their first day and she keeps the brood together by running and food-pecking displays and by clucking. Experiments at Bristol University have shown that mother hens appear to notice when their chicks are eating what the hens believe to be the ‘wrong’ sort of food and actively try to teach the chicks to eat ‘good’ food.75 Chicks learn dust bathing in their first few days and also start preening, frolicking and sparring, although they are rarely aggressive before about 6-8 weeks. For their first 3 weeks, they can get cold and need to be ‘brooded’ under their mother’s wings. Separated chicks give peep calls which the hen answers and responds to. At about 6-8 weeks the hen and chicks start to roost in trees and she leaves them by 12 weeks to return to the adult group.
Sows
In wild or free-range conditions, pregnant sows may walk 5-10 km before selecting a sufficiently isolated and protected nest site. The nest can take 10 hours to build and the sow may completely cover herself in the nest material before giving birth. She stays with the piglets in the nest for up to 2 weeks, and then they all leave the nest and return nearer to the rest of their herd. After the first 2-3 days in the nest the sow will go out on foraging trips and the piglets will start to follow her. She calls the piglets to suckle by a ‘lactation grunt’, which causes them to gather and start to massage her udder. After the sow and piglets leave the nest, the piglets are gradually integrated into the herd and they are gradually weaned by around 17 weeks.
Cows
Wild and feral cows isolate themselves from the main herd before birth and may keep their calves hidden in vegetation for a few days before returning to the herd. At birth, the cow licks the calf for a long time, until it is dry. Bonding between cow and calf takes place quickly. The calf suckles often, at first about 5-8 times a day, declining to 3-5 times a day as it gets older. Suckling is initiated by either the calf or the cow calling to each other. After about 3 weeks the calf starts to spend more time with other calves, and the herd appears to establish a ‘creche’, which it guards. As well as playing, the calf learns how to graze efficiently (its ‘bite-rate’ goes up from only 14 bites a minute at 2 months old to 50 bites a minute ten weeks later) and it also learns to avoid toxic plants. A wild calf would normally be suckled for at least 8 months or even until the next calf is born and the yearling would stay associated with its mother On a very extensive organic beef farm in England, where family groups are maintained, there is evidence for mother-daughter relationships continuing well after the new calf is born. On one occasion a young heifer’s first calf was born dead and her womb was displaced in giving birth. After emergency veterinary treatment she staggered away through the fields to find her mother and the farmers found her lying at her mother’s feet, being licked and apparently comforted.
Raising young is a vital activity for all animals. Because of this, the parent animals have evolved to be very highly motivated to carry out their natural maternal behaviour. The same is true of the bond between mother and young, which is vital for the survival of the young. Numbers of experiments and observations show that building a nest is very important to female pigs and to hens. This drive has an obvious survival value, since piglets are born very small and dependent, and both the mother hen and her eggs are vulnerable during incubation.
Hens
Domestic hens have essentially the same nesting behaviour as their wild relatives. To find a nest site, a hen may walk a considerable distance and explore several possible suitably enclosed sites, for example in thick vegetation, before she decides on one. She then scrapes a hollow and builds a raised edge to the nest before laying. Domestic hens take one or two hours to find a site and lay an egg. In natural conditions the hen would lay several eggs in the same nest and then stop laying and start incubating the clutch. The chicks start communicating with the hen and each other by peeping calls even before they are hatched. They call the hen to turn the eggs or return to incubating and they also respond to her behaviour and to her own calls. On the day of hatching, the chicks explore and peck at potential food, but they need the hen for protection and for learning about suitable food sources. The chicks ‘imprint’ on the hen on their first day and she keeps the brood together by running and food-pecking displays and by clucking. Experiments at Bristol University have shown that mother hens appear to notice when their chicks are eating what the hens believe to be the ‘wrong’ sort of food and actively try to teach the chicks to eat ‘good’ food.75 Chicks learn dust bathing in their first few days and also start preening, frolicking and sparring, although they are rarely aggressive before about 6-8 weeks. For their first 3 weeks, they can get cold and need to be ‘brooded’ under their mother’s wings. Separated chicks give peep calls which the hen answers and responds to. At about 6-8 weeks the hen and chicks start to roost in trees and she leaves them by 12 weeks to return to the adult group.
Sows
In wild or free-range conditions, pregnant sows may walk 5-10 km before selecting a sufficiently isolated and protected nest site. The nest can take 10 hours to build and the sow may completely cover herself in the nest material before giving birth. She stays with the piglets in the nest for up to 2 weeks, and then they all leave the nest and return nearer to the rest of their herd. After the first 2-3 days in the nest the sow will go out on foraging trips and the piglets will start to follow her. She calls the piglets to suckle by a ‘lactation grunt’, which causes them to gather and start to massage her udder. After the sow and piglets leave the nest, the piglets are gradually integrated into the herd and they are gradually weaned by around 17 weeks.
Cows
Wild and feral cows isolate themselves from the main herd before birth and may keep their calves hidden in vegetation for a few days before returning to the herd. At birth, the cow licks the calf for a long time, until it is dry. Bonding between cow and calf takes place quickly. The calf suckles often, at first about 5-8 times a day, declining to 3-5 times a day as it gets older. Suckling is initiated by either the calf or the cow calling to each other. After about 3 weeks the calf starts to spend more time with other calves, and the herd appears to establish a ‘creche’, which it guards. As well as playing, the calf learns how to graze efficiently (its ‘bite-rate’ goes up from only 14 bites a minute at 2 months old to 50 bites a minute ten weeks later) and it also learns to avoid toxic plants. A wild calf would normally be suckled for at least 8 months or even until the next calf is born and the yearling would stay associated with its mother On a very extensive organic beef farm in England, where family groups are maintained, there is evidence for mother-daughter relationships continuing well after the new calf is born. On one occasion a young heifer’s first calf was born dead and her womb was displaced in giving birth. After emergency veterinary treatment she staggered away through the fields to find her mother and the farmers found her lying at her mother’s feet, being licked and apparently comforted.
Communication
Farm animals communicate with members of the group or family using several
different senses
Communication between farm animals is very difficult for humans to observe, let alone interpret. We find the behaviour even of other humans difficult to interpret without words (silent or foreign-language movies have subtitles to help) and undoubtedly we are still ignorant of much of the communication that goes on between farm animals. For social animals such as sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry, communication is essential for their social behaviour, for maintaining relations between parents and young, for conveying information about danger and food and for expressing intentions and emotions. Communication includes calls and other noises, but also involves posture and gestures, and odours. Farm animals use their senses of sight, hearing,touch and smell to get messages from others.
Cattle
Visual communication is very important to cattle. They have wide-set eyes with 320° panoramic vision. Visual signals can use all or part of their body and head posture is important to indicate aggression or submission. Tail position can be used to indicate mood and activity (for example,
in play). Calls are important to indicate excitement, interest, or pleasure (for example in feeding), to express frustration or stress, or to regain contact when isolated or separated - farmers and country-dwellers know that cows can call for days after their new calves have been removed. Cattle also have a large number of odour glands, and odours are important in their social, sexual and maternal behaviour. Tactile communication and grooming are used in establishing social rank, and in sexual and maternal behaviour.
Pigs
Pigs are very vocal. Wild and feral pigs communicate by grunts, squeals, snarls and snorts, champing of jaws, clacking of teeth and roars. Boars use ‘mating songs’ during courtship. The sow uses a special lactation grunt to call her piglets to suckle. Piglets keep contact with each other and their mother by grunts and squeals. Scientists in Canada have shown that farmed piglets separated from their mother squeal to communicate with her, and that she responds with long grunts. In experiments, when the piglets heard her grunts, they redoubled their own calls. The squeals of cold piglets (kept at 14° rather than a comfortable 30°) are shriller and longer, indicating their need for their mother’s attention. The sows recognised when the piglets calling them were especially ‘needy’ (because they were small, cold and had missed a feed) and responded more strongly than they did when they were called by larger and well-fed piglets.
Chickens
Jungle fowl and domestic chickens are believed to have over 30 different calls, used to exchange information and to indicate the bird’s emotional state. Cockerels crow to advertise their territory and to assess other males. There are also contact calls; laying and nesting calls; mating calls; threat calls; submissive calls; distress, fear and alarm calls; contentment calls; food calls, and warning calls. There are distinct alarm calls for aerial or ground predators, which other chickens respond to appropriately by standing up alert, crouching or taking cover. Males are more likely to give alarm calls when there are females nearby. Chickens also communicate by postures and visual displays (for example to signal threat or submission). Bodily features such as comb size and colour are used as signals (for example of sexual or social status) and for recognising each other.
different senses
Communication between farm animals is very difficult for humans to observe, let alone interpret. We find the behaviour even of other humans difficult to interpret without words (silent or foreign-language movies have subtitles to help) and undoubtedly we are still ignorant of much of the communication that goes on between farm animals. For social animals such as sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry, communication is essential for their social behaviour, for maintaining relations between parents and young, for conveying information about danger and food and for expressing intentions and emotions. Communication includes calls and other noises, but also involves posture and gestures, and odours. Farm animals use their senses of sight, hearing,touch and smell to get messages from others.
Cattle
Visual communication is very important to cattle. They have wide-set eyes with 320° panoramic vision. Visual signals can use all or part of their body and head posture is important to indicate aggression or submission. Tail position can be used to indicate mood and activity (for example,
in play). Calls are important to indicate excitement, interest, or pleasure (for example in feeding), to express frustration or stress, or to regain contact when isolated or separated - farmers and country-dwellers know that cows can call for days after their new calves have been removed. Cattle also have a large number of odour glands, and odours are important in their social, sexual and maternal behaviour. Tactile communication and grooming are used in establishing social rank, and in sexual and maternal behaviour.
Pigs
Pigs are very vocal. Wild and feral pigs communicate by grunts, squeals, snarls and snorts, champing of jaws, clacking of teeth and roars. Boars use ‘mating songs’ during courtship. The sow uses a special lactation grunt to call her piglets to suckle. Piglets keep contact with each other and their mother by grunts and squeals. Scientists in Canada have shown that farmed piglets separated from their mother squeal to communicate with her, and that she responds with long grunts. In experiments, when the piglets heard her grunts, they redoubled their own calls. The squeals of cold piglets (kept at 14° rather than a comfortable 30°) are shriller and longer, indicating their need for their mother’s attention. The sows recognised when the piglets calling them were especially ‘needy’ (because they were small, cold and had missed a feed) and responded more strongly than they did when they were called by larger and well-fed piglets.
Chickens
Jungle fowl and domestic chickens are believed to have over 30 different calls, used to exchange information and to indicate the bird’s emotional state. Cockerels crow to advertise their territory and to assess other males. There are also contact calls; laying and nesting calls; mating calls; threat calls; submissive calls; distress, fear and alarm calls; contentment calls; food calls, and warning calls. There are distinct alarm calls for aerial or ground predators, which other chickens respond to appropriately by standing up alert, crouching or taking cover. Males are more likely to give alarm calls when there are females nearby. Chickens also communicate by postures and visual displays (for example to signal threat or submission). Bodily features such as comb size and colour are used as signals (for example of sexual or social status) and for recognising each other.
Natural behaviour and preferences
Farm animals show that they strongly prefer living in conditions where they can
carry out their natural behaviour patterns
Experts agree that domestication of animals has changed their basic motivations and behaviour patterns very little. This means that the animals we farm evolved to perform a wide range of natural behaviours which are still very important to them. By observations and experiments, researchers have provided compelling evidence about how farm animals choose to behave and how they prefer to live.
Chickens
Exploratory and foraging behaviour is very important to chickens. The chicken’s beak is used like a sensitive hand for exploration and manipulation as well as feeding. Chickens search for food by scratching with their claws and pecking, turning over leaves to look for seeds,insects or grubs. According to scientists, ‘pecking is a precise, high-tech activity’ requiring good coordination with the eye. In natural conditions chickens spend between half and 90% of their time foraging, making up to 15,000 pecks a day. Even when all their food is provided in troughs, chickens spend a lot of time pecking and scratching. Harmful pecking of other hens (feather pecking) by farmed chickens is believed to start with re-directed pecking; it is never seen among wild chickens. Farmed hens that have lived on wire floors all their lives show an immediate preference for a floor of wood shavings or peat, where they start scratching and pecking. Every 2 or 3 days chickens dust bathe, when they lie down and rub litter material (a form of ‘dry shampoo’) through their feathers, tossing litter onto their backs with their wings, and then shaking it out of their feathers. Preference experiments show that hens will ‘work’ very hard to get conditions where they can carry out natural behaviour that is important to them, such as litter to scratch and dust bathe in and a nest box to lay their eggs in.
Pigs
Pigs in natural conditions also spend many of their waking hours rooting and foraging, using their sensitive and versatile snouts and their acute sense of smell to find food under soil or stones, but also grazing and browsing on vegetation. They try to keep at a comfortable temperature, by wallowing in wet mud in hot weather and huddling when they are cold. They make a communal nest and sleep in it huddled together. Several experiments have shown that farmed pigs much prefer a floor material that they can root in and manipulate. Scientists at the Agricultural Institute of Northern Ireland measured the time that pigs chose to spend on several different floor types (peat, mushroom compost, wood bark, sand, sawdust, straw and bare concrete). The pigs clearly preferred peat and mushroom compost (both similar to earth) and their least preferred option was bare concrete. When the behaviour of young pigs in barren pens was compared with young pigs in pens containing peat or straw substrate, the researchers found that the piglets in the pens with substrate material were more active (including frisking, scraping the ground, scampering, rolling in the substrate) and were less aggressive to each other. Compared to pigs in barren pens, they spent 10 times as much time playing. Experiments in Scotland, giving growing pigs relatively small amounts of straw (200 gm each a day), showed that the pigs spent over a quarter of their time occupied with the straw. Experiments in Denmark have also shown the very strong preference of pigs for peat rather than straw, suggesting that pigs feel best able to carry out their natural behaviour when kept outside on earth.
Cattle
Beef cattle are often kept indoors over winter or for final fattening (‘finishing’). Often they are kept on bare concrete slatted floors. Experiments at the Agricultural Research Institute of Northern Ireland have shown that steers brought in from their summer pasture to indoor housing much preferred to be on a solid floor covered by either straw or sawdust (they preferred straw). The steers chose to spend over 21 times as long on the solid floor covered with straw than on the bare slatted floor, presumably because they found it more comfortable and more similar to natural conditions outdoors.
carry out their natural behaviour patterns
Experts agree that domestication of animals has changed their basic motivations and behaviour patterns very little. This means that the animals we farm evolved to perform a wide range of natural behaviours which are still very important to them. By observations and experiments, researchers have provided compelling evidence about how farm animals choose to behave and how they prefer to live.
Chickens
Exploratory and foraging behaviour is very important to chickens. The chicken’s beak is used like a sensitive hand for exploration and manipulation as well as feeding. Chickens search for food by scratching with their claws and pecking, turning over leaves to look for seeds,insects or grubs. According to scientists, ‘pecking is a precise, high-tech activity’ requiring good coordination with the eye. In natural conditions chickens spend between half and 90% of their time foraging, making up to 15,000 pecks a day. Even when all their food is provided in troughs, chickens spend a lot of time pecking and scratching. Harmful pecking of other hens (feather pecking) by farmed chickens is believed to start with re-directed pecking; it is never seen among wild chickens. Farmed hens that have lived on wire floors all their lives show an immediate preference for a floor of wood shavings or peat, where they start scratching and pecking. Every 2 or 3 days chickens dust bathe, when they lie down and rub litter material (a form of ‘dry shampoo’) through their feathers, tossing litter onto their backs with their wings, and then shaking it out of their feathers. Preference experiments show that hens will ‘work’ very hard to get conditions where they can carry out natural behaviour that is important to them, such as litter to scratch and dust bathe in and a nest box to lay their eggs in.
Pigs
Pigs in natural conditions also spend many of their waking hours rooting and foraging, using their sensitive and versatile snouts and their acute sense of smell to find food under soil or stones, but also grazing and browsing on vegetation. They try to keep at a comfortable temperature, by wallowing in wet mud in hot weather and huddling when they are cold. They make a communal nest and sleep in it huddled together. Several experiments have shown that farmed pigs much prefer a floor material that they can root in and manipulate. Scientists at the Agricultural Institute of Northern Ireland measured the time that pigs chose to spend on several different floor types (peat, mushroom compost, wood bark, sand, sawdust, straw and bare concrete). The pigs clearly preferred peat and mushroom compost (both similar to earth) and their least preferred option was bare concrete. When the behaviour of young pigs in barren pens was compared with young pigs in pens containing peat or straw substrate, the researchers found that the piglets in the pens with substrate material were more active (including frisking, scraping the ground, scampering, rolling in the substrate) and were less aggressive to each other. Compared to pigs in barren pens, they spent 10 times as much time playing. Experiments in Scotland, giving growing pigs relatively small amounts of straw (200 gm each a day), showed that the pigs spent over a quarter of their time occupied with the straw. Experiments in Denmark have also shown the very strong preference of pigs for peat rather than straw, suggesting that pigs feel best able to carry out their natural behaviour when kept outside on earth.
Cattle
Beef cattle are often kept indoors over winter or for final fattening (‘finishing’). Often they are kept on bare concrete slatted floors. Experiments at the Agricultural Research Institute of Northern Ireland have shown that steers brought in from their summer pasture to indoor housing much preferred to be on a solid floor covered by either straw or sawdust (they preferred straw). The steers chose to spend over 21 times as long on the solid floor covered with straw than on the bare slatted floor, presumably because they found it more comfortable and more similar to natural conditions outdoors.
Understanding, problem-solving and learning
Experiments have shown that farm animals have good memories, can form mental images of things that interest them, can learn from each other and can even understand what another animal knows
We tend to underestimate farm animals’ abilities to solve problems, to understand their environment, and to learn. In natural conditions, these skills would be an essential part of the animal’s equipment for survival. It should be no surprise to find that sheep and goats can remember the position of food sources and learn to distinguish nutritious from unpalatable areas of food. Experiments on farm animals’ cognitive abilities show that they can understand and distinguish between objects, people and events in their environment, form expectations of what is likely to happen, and work out how to deal with new situations.
Chickens
Hens, as well as cows, sheep and pigs, can tell individual humans apart. In experiments at the University of Guelph, hens easily learned to tell 2 humans apart as efficiently as cattle. The hens turned away from the human who consistently failed to offer them food. Hens can form expectations; when deliberately prevented from getting at food in experiments when they had been trained to expect a good food reward in the same situation, they gave ‘gakel-calls’ which scientists interpret as emotional frustration.Hens also learn from each other. Mother hens use ‘food displays’ (scratching, pecking) to teach their chicks what is the right sort of food and are concerned when they see chicks eating what they think is the wrong food. Hens can also learn from watching other hens perform a task. Even 2-day old chicks seem to be capable of making mental images. The chicks were set a task of finding an object they had imprinted on, when they could only see it through a small window in a barrier. They were able to keep the object that they were trying to reach in their minds when it went out of sight. Two-week old chicks are able to use their spatial memory to find hidden food.
Pigs
Pigs are generally recognised to be at least as good at problem-solving as dogs, and can remember where to find hidden food. But they also seem to have an understanding of what is going on in other pigs’ minds and make their own decisions accordingly in order to get what they want. This type of thinking has often been assumed to be special to apes and humans. Bristol University scientists have showed that if one pig has been taught where food is hidden, other pigs notice that the pig is ‘informed’ and follow the leader rather than searching randomly. They then steal the food from the ‘informed’ pig. In response, the ‘informed’ pig avoids going directly to the food when the non-informed pig is near, in order to have time to eat some food before the other pig arrives.
We tend to underestimate farm animals’ abilities to solve problems, to understand their environment, and to learn. In natural conditions, these skills would be an essential part of the animal’s equipment for survival. It should be no surprise to find that sheep and goats can remember the position of food sources and learn to distinguish nutritious from unpalatable areas of food. Experiments on farm animals’ cognitive abilities show that they can understand and distinguish between objects, people and events in their environment, form expectations of what is likely to happen, and work out how to deal with new situations.
Chickens
Hens, as well as cows, sheep and pigs, can tell individual humans apart. In experiments at the University of Guelph, hens easily learned to tell 2 humans apart as efficiently as cattle. The hens turned away from the human who consistently failed to offer them food. Hens can form expectations; when deliberately prevented from getting at food in experiments when they had been trained to expect a good food reward in the same situation, they gave ‘gakel-calls’ which scientists interpret as emotional frustration.Hens also learn from each other. Mother hens use ‘food displays’ (scratching, pecking) to teach their chicks what is the right sort of food and are concerned when they see chicks eating what they think is the wrong food. Hens can also learn from watching other hens perform a task. Even 2-day old chicks seem to be capable of making mental images. The chicks were set a task of finding an object they had imprinted on, when they could only see it through a small window in a barrier. They were able to keep the object that they were trying to reach in their minds when it went out of sight. Two-week old chicks are able to use their spatial memory to find hidden food.
Pigs
Pigs are generally recognised to be at least as good at problem-solving as dogs, and can remember where to find hidden food. But they also seem to have an understanding of what is going on in other pigs’ minds and make their own decisions accordingly in order to get what they want. This type of thinking has often been assumed to be special to apes and humans. Bristol University scientists have showed that if one pig has been taught where food is hidden, other pigs notice that the pig is ‘informed’ and follow the leader rather than searching randomly. They then steal the food from the ‘informed’ pig. In response, the ‘informed’ pig avoids going directly to the food when the non-informed pig is near, in order to have time to eat some food before the other pig arrives.
Pain and discomfort
Many farming practices cause animals pain and discomfort, either directly or indirectly
Farm animals are subjected to pain and discomfort in a number of ways. Pain and discomfort can be caused by deliberate procedures (such as mutilations or rough handling). Sometimes it is the unintended result of intensive farming practices, for example in housing, breeding,feeding, handling at markets, transport and slaughter, that do not take sufficient account of the animals’ capacity to suffer.
Mutilations
Mutilations that are often carried out in farming include the tail-docking of piglets, lambs, calves and cows, the castration of male piglets, lambs and calves, the de-horning of calves and the de-beaking of hens (cutting off part of the beak). These operations are normally carried out without the use of pain-relieving drugs. Scientific studies show that mutilations can cause the animals both acute pain and lasting pain.
Pigs
Piglets very often have most of their tails sliced off to discourage them from biting each others’ tails in crowded pens where they have no environmental stimulation. Tail-biting must be very painful and stressful for the pigs but it is a problem caused by intensive farming. Several scientific studies have shown that providing straw or other environmental enrichment, or rearing pigs outdoors, greatly reduces or stops tail-biting altogether. In many countries, male piglets being reared for meat are also castrated.
Both tail-docking and castration cause pain. Measurements of the squeals of piglets being castrated with a knife have shown that the frequency of the piglets’ screams increased by 1000 Hz when the first cut was made and increased almost as much again when the second cut was made. Up to a week after the operation, the male piglets were less active than their female litter mates, and showed more trembling, leg shaking, sliding on their hindquarters and tail-jerking. Some vomited and they lay down slowly, sparing their hindquarters. Scientists have commented on these findings that ‘it seems reasonable to assume that considerable pain is experienced for several days’. During the castration procedure, studies in Canada and Germany have shown that the piglets cried out the most when the spermatic cord was pulled out of the scrotum and cut, and that these vocalisations during surgery were significantly different from the squealing of piglets who were picked up and handled but not castrated, leading to the conclusion that these vocalisations were ‘indicators of pain and suffering’.
Cows and Calves
Studies of the tail-docking of dairy cows (a mutilation that is done in some countries) shows that the operation is painful and prevents the cows getting rid of biting flies by swatting them with their long tails. After the operation, cows spend less time lying down, a sign of discomfort. Research on Holstein calves in Indiana and Wisconsin found that tail-docking by ‘banding’ (cutting off blood supply to the tail using a rubber ring) caused the calves ‘moderate acute pain’ - they were agitated, lay down less and kept touching their tails with their heads. Docked calves had more flies on their rears and made less effort to swing their tails to get rid of them,sometimes trying to lick them off instead. Lactating cows in a Canadian study showed their pain on docking by holding their tails pressed close to their bodies. New Zealand studies of pain caused by de-horning dairy calves found that the calves behaved abnormally for several hours after the operations, indicating the ‘acute pain experienced’. The researchers concluded that calves should be given both local anaesthetic and an analgesic (anti-inflammatory) drug ‘to alleviate the pain associated with this procedure’.
Lambs and Sheep
Lambs are routinely tail-docked and castrated without pain-relieving drugs. This is usually done either by cutting off the blood supply to the tail or scrotum using a rubber ring, by cutting with a knife or hot iron, or by an instrument that crushes the nerves and blood vessels instantly (‘bloodless castrator’). All these methods have been shown to cause pain and distress. The bloodless castrator involves ‘a brief shock of intense pain experienced by the lambs as the instrument is applied’, according to a veterinary scientist at the University of Edinburgh. Studies by the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, of the abnormal behaviour of lambs after they were tail-docked and castrated by the rubber ring method concluded that the lambs ‘experienced acute pain’.102 Studies in New Zealand showed that lambs tail-docked or castrated by constriction of their tails or the neck of the scrotum (by a rubber ring) suffered ‘significant distress’. Some lay on their sides, writhed and kicked. They repeatedly lay down and stood up again, up to 40 times more often than normal, for the first hour after the operation. When a knife was used to cut off their tail and cut out their testicles, the lambs walked with splayed legs or stood completely still, seemingly unaware of their surroundings (‘statue standing’), behaving abnormally for at least 4 hours. The operations caused the concentration of cortisol in the lambs’ blood to approximately double. Sheep in Australia are subjected to ‘mulesing’ (when the skin around the base of the tail is cut off leaving raw flesh, to reduce fly attack) and to tooth-grinding. Both of these are done without pain-killing drugs. The levels of cortisol in the sheep’s blood is still high 24 hours after mulesing. Scientists believe that both of these operations ‘would be expected, from the knowledge of pain receptors and the responses of other animals, to be extremely painful’.
Laying Hens
De-beaking (partial amputation of the beak) of chicks is carried out to prevent hens from injuring or even killing each other by pecking at each others feathers and bodies. De-beaking is used on farms where the hens are kept in cages, in barns, and even on free range farms. Apart from the pain of the operation itself, scientists believe that the amputation causes the development of neuromas (tumours on nerve tissue) in the beak, which give lasting pain. This discourages the hens from using their painful beaks in a natural way for foraging and exploration. Animal welfare experts in Canada and the UK have concluded ‘It is clear that beak trimming (or de-beaking as it is sometimes called) shows all signs of being a painful operation with prolonged painful effects as well as effects on feeding and exploratory behaviour’.
Farm animals are subjected to pain and discomfort in a number of ways. Pain and discomfort can be caused by deliberate procedures (such as mutilations or rough handling). Sometimes it is the unintended result of intensive farming practices, for example in housing, breeding,feeding, handling at markets, transport and slaughter, that do not take sufficient account of the animals’ capacity to suffer.
Mutilations
Mutilations that are often carried out in farming include the tail-docking of piglets, lambs, calves and cows, the castration of male piglets, lambs and calves, the de-horning of calves and the de-beaking of hens (cutting off part of the beak). These operations are normally carried out without the use of pain-relieving drugs. Scientific studies show that mutilations can cause the animals both acute pain and lasting pain.
Pigs
Piglets very often have most of their tails sliced off to discourage them from biting each others’ tails in crowded pens where they have no environmental stimulation. Tail-biting must be very painful and stressful for the pigs but it is a problem caused by intensive farming. Several scientific studies have shown that providing straw or other environmental enrichment, or rearing pigs outdoors, greatly reduces or stops tail-biting altogether. In many countries, male piglets being reared for meat are also castrated.
Both tail-docking and castration cause pain. Measurements of the squeals of piglets being castrated with a knife have shown that the frequency of the piglets’ screams increased by 1000 Hz when the first cut was made and increased almost as much again when the second cut was made. Up to a week after the operation, the male piglets were less active than their female litter mates, and showed more trembling, leg shaking, sliding on their hindquarters and tail-jerking. Some vomited and they lay down slowly, sparing their hindquarters. Scientists have commented on these findings that ‘it seems reasonable to assume that considerable pain is experienced for several days’. During the castration procedure, studies in Canada and Germany have shown that the piglets cried out the most when the spermatic cord was pulled out of the scrotum and cut, and that these vocalisations during surgery were significantly different from the squealing of piglets who were picked up and handled but not castrated, leading to the conclusion that these vocalisations were ‘indicators of pain and suffering’.
Cows and Calves
Studies of the tail-docking of dairy cows (a mutilation that is done in some countries) shows that the operation is painful and prevents the cows getting rid of biting flies by swatting them with their long tails. After the operation, cows spend less time lying down, a sign of discomfort. Research on Holstein calves in Indiana and Wisconsin found that tail-docking by ‘banding’ (cutting off blood supply to the tail using a rubber ring) caused the calves ‘moderate acute pain’ - they were agitated, lay down less and kept touching their tails with their heads. Docked calves had more flies on their rears and made less effort to swing their tails to get rid of them,sometimes trying to lick them off instead. Lactating cows in a Canadian study showed their pain on docking by holding their tails pressed close to their bodies. New Zealand studies of pain caused by de-horning dairy calves found that the calves behaved abnormally for several hours after the operations, indicating the ‘acute pain experienced’. The researchers concluded that calves should be given both local anaesthetic and an analgesic (anti-inflammatory) drug ‘to alleviate the pain associated with this procedure’.
Lambs and Sheep
Lambs are routinely tail-docked and castrated without pain-relieving drugs. This is usually done either by cutting off the blood supply to the tail or scrotum using a rubber ring, by cutting with a knife or hot iron, or by an instrument that crushes the nerves and blood vessels instantly (‘bloodless castrator’). All these methods have been shown to cause pain and distress. The bloodless castrator involves ‘a brief shock of intense pain experienced by the lambs as the instrument is applied’, according to a veterinary scientist at the University of Edinburgh. Studies by the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, of the abnormal behaviour of lambs after they were tail-docked and castrated by the rubber ring method concluded that the lambs ‘experienced acute pain’.102 Studies in New Zealand showed that lambs tail-docked or castrated by constriction of their tails or the neck of the scrotum (by a rubber ring) suffered ‘significant distress’. Some lay on their sides, writhed and kicked. They repeatedly lay down and stood up again, up to 40 times more often than normal, for the first hour after the operation. When a knife was used to cut off their tail and cut out their testicles, the lambs walked with splayed legs or stood completely still, seemingly unaware of their surroundings (‘statue standing’), behaving abnormally for at least 4 hours. The operations caused the concentration of cortisol in the lambs’ blood to approximately double. Sheep in Australia are subjected to ‘mulesing’ (when the skin around the base of the tail is cut off leaving raw flesh, to reduce fly attack) and to tooth-grinding. Both of these are done without pain-killing drugs. The levels of cortisol in the sheep’s blood is still high 24 hours after mulesing. Scientists believe that both of these operations ‘would be expected, from the knowledge of pain receptors and the responses of other animals, to be extremely painful’.
Laying Hens
De-beaking (partial amputation of the beak) of chicks is carried out to prevent hens from injuring or even killing each other by pecking at each others feathers and bodies. De-beaking is used on farms where the hens are kept in cages, in barns, and even on free range farms. Apart from the pain of the operation itself, scientists believe that the amputation causes the development of neuromas (tumours on nerve tissue) in the beak, which give lasting pain. This discourages the hens from using their painful beaks in a natural way for foraging and exploration. Animal welfare experts in Canada and the UK have concluded ‘It is clear that beak trimming (or de-beaking as it is sometimes called) shows all signs of being a painful operation with prolonged painful effects as well as effects on feeding and exploratory behaviour’.
Close confinement and indoor housing
Many farmed animals worldwide are kept in ‘close confinement’, almost unable to move, in cages, stalls or crates. Many others are kept in barren and crowded indoor housing. These housing systems cause pain and discomfort from injury
and poor health
In practice, many aspects of animal housing in intensive farming are not based on the behavioural needs and preferences of the animals but on the convenience of the farmer. Millions of animals worldwide live their lives in ‘close confinement’ in what are essentially cages. Close confinement, where the animal’s movement and natural behaviour is severely restricted, has been shown to cause suffering both because of the behavioural restriction and because of increased incidence of some types of injury and diseases. Keeping laying hens confined in battery cages prevents exercise and natural behaviour, and also makes them more prone to brittle bones (osteoporosis) and bone breakages. Sows confined in sow stalls (gestation crates) suffer both frustration and physical deterioration. Young calves raised for veal in narrow ‘veal crates’ cannot turn round, groom themselves or exercise, leading to abnormal behaviour and ill health. When the animals are not physically confined by bars, they are often kept crowded indoors, without environmental enrichment and in conditions that contribute to disease. Concrete or slatted floors are unsuitable for pigs and cattle and contribute to long-term painful lameness. Meat chickens (broilers) are so crowded that both their movement and resting are disturbed. The manure-filled litter on the floor causes them to suffer pain from skin sores and from irritation of their respiratory tracts and eyes caused by air pollution. Research at Bristol University has shown that broilers find high concentrations of ammonia aversive and ‘avoid ammonia at concentrations commonly found on poultry units’ if they are given a free choice of where to spend their time. Broilers’ eyes can be damaged by the very low light levels provided in broiler sheds (typically 10-30 lux compared to 250 lux in a business office). Broilers’ health can also suffer in some intensive systems where the light is kept on most of the time in order to encourage eating, and the birds are not provided with long enough periods of darkness.
and poor health
In practice, many aspects of animal housing in intensive farming are not based on the behavioural needs and preferences of the animals but on the convenience of the farmer. Millions of animals worldwide live their lives in ‘close confinement’ in what are essentially cages. Close confinement, where the animal’s movement and natural behaviour is severely restricted, has been shown to cause suffering both because of the behavioural restriction and because of increased incidence of some types of injury and diseases. Keeping laying hens confined in battery cages prevents exercise and natural behaviour, and also makes them more prone to brittle bones (osteoporosis) and bone breakages. Sows confined in sow stalls (gestation crates) suffer both frustration and physical deterioration. Young calves raised for veal in narrow ‘veal crates’ cannot turn round, groom themselves or exercise, leading to abnormal behaviour and ill health. When the animals are not physically confined by bars, they are often kept crowded indoors, without environmental enrichment and in conditions that contribute to disease. Concrete or slatted floors are unsuitable for pigs and cattle and contribute to long-term painful lameness. Meat chickens (broilers) are so crowded that both their movement and resting are disturbed. The manure-filled litter on the floor causes them to suffer pain from skin sores and from irritation of their respiratory tracts and eyes caused by air pollution. Research at Bristol University has shown that broilers find high concentrations of ammonia aversive and ‘avoid ammonia at concentrations commonly found on poultry units’ if they are given a free choice of where to spend their time. Broilers’ eyes can be damaged by the very low light levels provided in broiler sheds (typically 10-30 lux compared to 250 lux in a business office). Broilers’ health can also suffer in some intensive systems where the light is kept on most of the time in order to encourage eating, and the birds are not provided with long enough periods of darkness.
Intensive breeding
Breeding farm animals for maximum yield often causes them to suffer from
painful and debilitating health problems
Modern intensive farming aims to breed animals that produce a maximum yield of meat, milk or eggs. Cattle have been bred to be specialised for milk production or beef production. Chickens have been bred to be specialised for meat production or egg production. Breeding for maximum yield has resulted in increased pain and injury, often due to disease, because of the excessive demands put on the animals’ bodies. Dairy cows bred for high milk yield (which can be 35-50 litres a day) are more likely to suffer long-term pain from lameness and mastitis. Mastitis is a very painful infection of the udder. Surveys show that the majority of cows are likely to suffer from both of these painful conditions within their working lives. According to a survey of lameness on 53 farms by the University of Bristol Veterinary Department, 14% or more of the cows were observed to be lame on 80% of the farms studied – on the worst 20% of the farms, between 30% and 50% of the cows were lame. The Holstein dairy cow typically lasts only for around 3 lactations before she is sent for slaughter, often because of low fertility, mastitis or lameness. Dairy cows in France are reported to last for only 2.5 lactations. The cow’s low fertility is an indication of her chronic physical exhaustion. More traditional ‘dual purpose’ breeds of cow (they can be used for both beef and milk) can last for over 15 lactations. Meat chickens (broilers) are bred to grow so fast that they often suffer from painful lameness because their bodies are too heavy for their legs. These lame chickens have been found to choose food that contains an analgesic. Lame chickens may not be able to stand up to reach food and water containers. Severely lame birds have been found to drink avidly when water is put within reach.
painful and debilitating health problems
Modern intensive farming aims to breed animals that produce a maximum yield of meat, milk or eggs. Cattle have been bred to be specialised for milk production or beef production. Chickens have been bred to be specialised for meat production or egg production. Breeding for maximum yield has resulted in increased pain and injury, often due to disease, because of the excessive demands put on the animals’ bodies. Dairy cows bred for high milk yield (which can be 35-50 litres a day) are more likely to suffer long-term pain from lameness and mastitis. Mastitis is a very painful infection of the udder. Surveys show that the majority of cows are likely to suffer from both of these painful conditions within their working lives. According to a survey of lameness on 53 farms by the University of Bristol Veterinary Department, 14% or more of the cows were observed to be lame on 80% of the farms studied – on the worst 20% of the farms, between 30% and 50% of the cows were lame. The Holstein dairy cow typically lasts only for around 3 lactations before she is sent for slaughter, often because of low fertility, mastitis or lameness. Dairy cows in France are reported to last for only 2.5 lactations. The cow’s low fertility is an indication of her chronic physical exhaustion. More traditional ‘dual purpose’ breeds of cow (they can be used for both beef and milk) can last for over 15 lactations. Meat chickens (broilers) are bred to grow so fast that they often suffer from painful lameness because their bodies are too heavy for their legs. These lame chickens have been found to choose food that contains an analgesic. Lame chickens may not be able to stand up to reach food and water containers. Severely lame birds have been found to drink avidly when water is put within reach.
Handling, transport and slaughter
Farm animals are often subjected to rough and painful treatment during handling,
transport and slaughter
The handling of animals during marketing, transport and slaughter is a frequent source of injury and pain as they are moved, loaded, unloaded and processed in large numbers, often with maximum haste. A study of livestock markets in England, published in 2002, found that cattle were hit or poked with sticks or goaded by gates in all of them. Three quarters of the cattle that had passed through a market had some bruising. According to the EU’s Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Animal Welfare in 2004, ‘Some very poor welfare in transported animals is caused by bad treatment of animals during loading or unloading, by bad driving or due to inadequate inspection’. Throughout the world, farm animals such as sheep and cattle are subjected to long-distance transport for slaughter, in journeys that may take days or even weeks in crowded conditions, sometimes without feed, water or rest. Laying hens and meat chickens travel less far for slaughter, but are often injured by being packed into crates and transported. In the EU alone, it can be estimated that between 18 and 35 million chickens arrive dead at the slaughterhouse every year, often due to heat stress or broken bones.In Western countries it is normally legally required that animals are stunned before slaughter in order to spare them pain when their necks are cut. However, in many countries pre-slaughter stunning is not required, and even in countries where it is legally required the stunning may be carried out incompetently, so that it subjects some animals to additional pain and fear. Animals can also be frightened by the unfamiliarity and noise of slaughterhouses and can suffer from rough handling. Chickens are normally stunned after being hung upside down by their legs in shackles when fully conscious. Hanging in shackles is likely to be very painful, especially when birds are lame or have broken legs. Experiments on the activity of nociceptors in the legs of (anaesthetised) chickens during shackling concluded that ‘shackling is likely to be a very painful procedure’ if farm animals are not stunned effectively, or the time between stunning and neck-cutting is too long, they may still be conscious when they are being killed. In the case of chickens (up to 200 birds are slaughtered per minute in a modern slaughterhouse) it has been estimated that 9 in 1000 chickens may have their throats cut while conscious. This would amount to more than50 million chickens a year in the EU alone. Some pigs and poultry are stunned by gassing them with carbon dioxide (CO2), which is likely to be both painful and distressing. Carbon dioxide forms an acid with water; when humans breath it, it gives a ‘burning’ sensation and at 30% concentration it causes hyperventilation, severe acidity of the blood, raised blood pressure and mental stress. Experiments show that carbon dioxide is aversive to rodents, pigs and turkeys and can cause severe respiratory distress. Scientists at the University of Birmingham (UK) have concluded that carbon dioxide gas should not be used for stunning or killing animals. Fish are now farmed in very large numbers throughout the world, the production growing at around 5% per year.136 Some slaughter methods used for fish almost certainly cause pain and distress. Some fish have their gill arches cut without pre-stunning. Fish may be left to suffocate in air, or on ice, when they are fully conscious. Because of the cooling effect of the ice, the fish can take 15 minutes to lose consciousness. Salmon and trout are sometimes stunned in water saturated with CO2, which causes severe distress. The fish do not lose consciousness for 4-9 minutes, which means they may often be conscious when their gills are cut with a knife.
transport and slaughter
The handling of animals during marketing, transport and slaughter is a frequent source of injury and pain as they are moved, loaded, unloaded and processed in large numbers, often with maximum haste. A study of livestock markets in England, published in 2002, found that cattle were hit or poked with sticks or goaded by gates in all of them. Three quarters of the cattle that had passed through a market had some bruising. According to the EU’s Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Animal Welfare in 2004, ‘Some very poor welfare in transported animals is caused by bad treatment of animals during loading or unloading, by bad driving or due to inadequate inspection’. Throughout the world, farm animals such as sheep and cattle are subjected to long-distance transport for slaughter, in journeys that may take days or even weeks in crowded conditions, sometimes without feed, water or rest. Laying hens and meat chickens travel less far for slaughter, but are often injured by being packed into crates and transported. In the EU alone, it can be estimated that between 18 and 35 million chickens arrive dead at the slaughterhouse every year, often due to heat stress or broken bones.In Western countries it is normally legally required that animals are stunned before slaughter in order to spare them pain when their necks are cut. However, in many countries pre-slaughter stunning is not required, and even in countries where it is legally required the stunning may be carried out incompetently, so that it subjects some animals to additional pain and fear. Animals can also be frightened by the unfamiliarity and noise of slaughterhouses and can suffer from rough handling. Chickens are normally stunned after being hung upside down by their legs in shackles when fully conscious. Hanging in shackles is likely to be very painful, especially when birds are lame or have broken legs. Experiments on the activity of nociceptors in the legs of (anaesthetised) chickens during shackling concluded that ‘shackling is likely to be a very painful procedure’ if farm animals are not stunned effectively, or the time between stunning and neck-cutting is too long, they may still be conscious when they are being killed. In the case of chickens (up to 200 birds are slaughtered per minute in a modern slaughterhouse) it has been estimated that 9 in 1000 chickens may have their throats cut while conscious. This would amount to more than50 million chickens a year in the EU alone. Some pigs and poultry are stunned by gassing them with carbon dioxide (CO2), which is likely to be both painful and distressing. Carbon dioxide forms an acid with water; when humans breath it, it gives a ‘burning’ sensation and at 30% concentration it causes hyperventilation, severe acidity of the blood, raised blood pressure and mental stress. Experiments show that carbon dioxide is aversive to rodents, pigs and turkeys and can cause severe respiratory distress. Scientists at the University of Birmingham (UK) have concluded that carbon dioxide gas should not be used for stunning or killing animals. Fish are now farmed in very large numbers throughout the world, the production growing at around 5% per year.136 Some slaughter methods used for fish almost certainly cause pain and distress. Some fish have their gill arches cut without pre-stunning. Fish may be left to suffocate in air, or on ice, when they are fully conscious. Because of the cooling effect of the ice, the fish can take 15 minutes to lose consciousness. Salmon and trout are sometimes stunned in water saturated with CO2, which causes severe distress. The fish do not lose consciousness for 4-9 minutes, which means they may often be conscious when their gills are cut with a knife.
Pain and discomfort caused by force feeding and feed restriction
The luxury product ‘foie gras’ (meaning ‘fat liver’) is produced by force feeding ducks and geese. The bird is force-fed during the last weeks of its life before slaughter, until its liver has swollen to 6-10 times the normal size. The birds are often kept singly in small cages during the force-feeding period. Force feeding is done by pushing a metal pipe into the animal’s beak and cramming grain down its throat. The result is fatty degeneration of liver cells, leading to a pathological condition of the liver, according to the EU’s Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare in 1998. The birds suffer pain, discomfort and sickness both from the force feeding procedure and from the effects of liver pathology. Force feeding for too long can lead to liver haemorrhages, jaundice and death. In addition, the swollen liver expands the bird’s abdomen, making standing and walking difficult. Meat (broiler) chickens that are used for breeding are often kept on a very restricted diet. Their ration can be as low as one fifth of what they would choose to eat as they grow to adulthood and they suffer from constant hunger. Feed restriction of up to 50% may be continued during adulthood. The feed restriction is done because meat chickens have been genetically selected to grow so fast that they can not survive healthily into adulthood unless their growth rate is held back. Scientists who have studied this practice conclude that the chickens are ‘highly motivated to eat at all times’ and that they are ‘chronically hungry, frustrated and stressed’.
Fear and anxiety
Farmed animals are often caused fear and anxiety by farming practices that fail to respect their awareness and capacity to suffer
Fear of humans and handling
Rough handling can cause high levels of fear in farm animals
Farm animals live under human control and they can suffer considerably from fear of what humans may be going to do to them. They show this fear by escape or avoidance behaviour. Scientists have concluded that animals that show high levels of fear of their stockmen may beliving in a state of ‘chronic stress’. Experiments have shown that pigs, calves or cows subjected to hits, slaps, kicks, pushes or threats by stock people rapidly learn to avoid humans. Dairy cows when hit or slapped as they move into the milking shed are restless, flinch and kick during milking. The fear is associated with long-term high levels of cortisol and enlargement of the adrenal glands (both indicative of stress). Pigs used to being handled roughly responded to the presence of humans with a 200% increase in corticosteroids. Fear of humans can reduce the productivity of pigs (growth and reproduction) by as much as 20%. High levels of fear also reduce the productivity of laying hens and broiler chickens. Positive handling, on the other hand, leads to less fear of humans. In the case of pigs, the fear can show up in their meat. Australian scientists found that pigs prodded with electric goads as they were moved from a slaughterhouse lairage to the stunning area were much more likely to produce ‘pale soft exudative’ (PSE) pork, which is caused by the chemical effects of acute stress before slaughter. In normal farming practice, animals are caused fear by moving, handling and transport. Studies have shown that sheep show a large increase in heart-rate when merely approached by a man with a dog (+84 beats per minute). Chickens and calves show greatly increased levels of stress hormones, and sometimes glucose depletion, during transportation presumably caused both by fear and by discomfort or pain.
Separation and weaning
Separating the parent and young by early weaning causes fear and distress
Fear and anxiety are very likely to be caused by separating young animals from their mother by forced weaning, but commercial farming practice rarely allows natural weaning. Natural weaning is a gradual process controlled by the mother.
Pigs
Natural weaning takes about 16-17 weeks in the case of pigs. In the EU piglets are usually weaned at 3-4 weeks old, but in some countries, such as the USA, piglets may be weaned and removed from their mother at 2 weeks old or even earlier. Scientists from Bristol University have noted that ‘Piglets are commonly removed from the mother when they would still be suckling, maintaining a strong social attachment to her, and relying on
her for ‘social security’ and protection under natural conditions. They are thus weaned when they are still behaviourally highly reliant on the sow’. The stress of abrupt weaning results in a high incidence of clinical disease and diarrhoea among the piglets. Piglets have a special distress call when separated from the sow, which the sow responds to. Scientists in Canada studied how much piglets called, depending on age of weaning (3, 4 or 5 weeks of age). All the piglets called very frequently in the first few days after weaning (they had rarely called when with the sow), at the astonishing average rate of 8 calls a minute on the first day, reducing to 1.6 calls a minute after 4 days. The piglets weaned at 3 weeks called over 50% more than those weaned at 5 weeks and called at higher frequency. Tests on piglets weaned at 7, 14 and 28 days found strong evidence that the early-weaned piglets were distressed. The piglets weaned at 7 days old (when naturally they would still be in the nest with the sow) spent more time trying to jump out of the pen and belly-nosing each other (a re-directed suckling behaviour that can cause injury). They showed little interest in eating. Their behaviour was described as ‘loss of will to live’ in a survey of Canadian farms.
Cows and calves
The dairy industry depends on the separation of the mother cow and her calf. A dairy cow in commercial farming is usually required to produce a calf once a year so that she will lactate for the following 10 months. In natural conditions a calf would not be weaned below six months and possibly not till 9-11 months. In commercial dairy farming, calves are usually removed after the first 24 hours, when they have suckled enough to provide them with the protective antibodies in the mother’s colostrum; or they may be removed immediately and fed colostrum by the farmer. The calves may be reared to be milking cows in their turn, or they may be reared for veal or beef. Male dairy calves of a pure dairy breed are often considered useless for prime beef production, and may be killed at birth. Experts agree that the separation of the dairy cow from her unweaned calf causes suffering. It is argued that the suffering may be less if the calf is removed soon after birth because, by two weeks from birth, the cow and calf have formed a strong emotional bond and when they are separated ‘the distress shown by both mother and calf is loud and prolonged’, according to a leading UK animal welfare expert. However, it is also known that the long-term health and welfare of the calves is reduced if they are removed very soon from their mothers and that they are less fearful and more sociable if they are allowed to remain with her for longer.Hungry calves kept alone in stalls and fed their milk ration only twice a day ‘start bawling’ when a stock person comes into their barn. Even when beef calves are removed from their mothers at 6 months old, the cows can call for days.
Fear and anxiety
Farmed animals are often caused fear and anxiety by farming practices that fail to respect their awareness and capacity to suffer
Fear of humans and handling
Rough handling can cause high levels of fear in farm animals
Farm animals live under human control and they can suffer considerably from fear of what humans may be going to do to them. They show this fear by escape or avoidance behaviour. Scientists have concluded that animals that show high levels of fear of their stockmen may beliving in a state of ‘chronic stress’. Experiments have shown that pigs, calves or cows subjected to hits, slaps, kicks, pushes or threats by stock people rapidly learn to avoid humans. Dairy cows when hit or slapped as they move into the milking shed are restless, flinch and kick during milking. The fear is associated with long-term high levels of cortisol and enlargement of the adrenal glands (both indicative of stress). Pigs used to being handled roughly responded to the presence of humans with a 200% increase in corticosteroids. Fear of humans can reduce the productivity of pigs (growth and reproduction) by as much as 20%. High levels of fear also reduce the productivity of laying hens and broiler chickens. Positive handling, on the other hand, leads to less fear of humans. In the case of pigs, the fear can show up in their meat. Australian scientists found that pigs prodded with electric goads as they were moved from a slaughterhouse lairage to the stunning area were much more likely to produce ‘pale soft exudative’ (PSE) pork, which is caused by the chemical effects of acute stress before slaughter. In normal farming practice, animals are caused fear by moving, handling and transport. Studies have shown that sheep show a large increase in heart-rate when merely approached by a man with a dog (+84 beats per minute). Chickens and calves show greatly increased levels of stress hormones, and sometimes glucose depletion, during transportation presumably caused both by fear and by discomfort or pain.
Separation and weaning
Separating the parent and young by early weaning causes fear and distress
Fear and anxiety are very likely to be caused by separating young animals from their mother by forced weaning, but commercial farming practice rarely allows natural weaning. Natural weaning is a gradual process controlled by the mother.
Pigs
Natural weaning takes about 16-17 weeks in the case of pigs. In the EU piglets are usually weaned at 3-4 weeks old, but in some countries, such as the USA, piglets may be weaned and removed from their mother at 2 weeks old or even earlier. Scientists from Bristol University have noted that ‘Piglets are commonly removed from the mother when they would still be suckling, maintaining a strong social attachment to her, and relying on
her for ‘social security’ and protection under natural conditions. They are thus weaned when they are still behaviourally highly reliant on the sow’. The stress of abrupt weaning results in a high incidence of clinical disease and diarrhoea among the piglets. Piglets have a special distress call when separated from the sow, which the sow responds to. Scientists in Canada studied how much piglets called, depending on age of weaning (3, 4 or 5 weeks of age). All the piglets called very frequently in the first few days after weaning (they had rarely called when with the sow), at the astonishing average rate of 8 calls a minute on the first day, reducing to 1.6 calls a minute after 4 days. The piglets weaned at 3 weeks called over 50% more than those weaned at 5 weeks and called at higher frequency. Tests on piglets weaned at 7, 14 and 28 days found strong evidence that the early-weaned piglets were distressed. The piglets weaned at 7 days old (when naturally they would still be in the nest with the sow) spent more time trying to jump out of the pen and belly-nosing each other (a re-directed suckling behaviour that can cause injury). They showed little interest in eating. Their behaviour was described as ‘loss of will to live’ in a survey of Canadian farms.
Cows and calves
The dairy industry depends on the separation of the mother cow and her calf. A dairy cow in commercial farming is usually required to produce a calf once a year so that she will lactate for the following 10 months. In natural conditions a calf would not be weaned below six months and possibly not till 9-11 months. In commercial dairy farming, calves are usually removed after the first 24 hours, when they have suckled enough to provide them with the protective antibodies in the mother’s colostrum; or they may be removed immediately and fed colostrum by the farmer. The calves may be reared to be milking cows in their turn, or they may be reared for veal or beef. Male dairy calves of a pure dairy breed are often considered useless for prime beef production, and may be killed at birth. Experts agree that the separation of the dairy cow from her unweaned calf causes suffering. It is argued that the suffering may be less if the calf is removed soon after birth because, by two weeks from birth, the cow and calf have formed a strong emotional bond and when they are separated ‘the distress shown by both mother and calf is loud and prolonged’, according to a leading UK animal welfare expert. However, it is also known that the long-term health and welfare of the calves is reduced if they are removed very soon from their mothers and that they are less fearful and more sociable if they are allowed to remain with her for longer.Hungry calves kept alone in stalls and fed their milk ration only twice a day ‘start bawling’ when a stock person comes into their barn. Even when beef calves are removed from their mothers at 6 months old, the cows can call for days.
Disruption of social and family behaviour
Farming practices often disrupt the social and family relationships of farm animals, leading to anxiety, frustration and stress
‘Almost everything about the way they are kept is abnormal… From a psychological point of view, they are a wild animal stuffed into an artificial containment system.’ The natural family behaviour of animals is often ignored in modern commercial farming. Scientists are aware that their natural behaviour may be ‘ill suited to the unnatural physical and social environment’ that the animals are kept in. Farm animals are predisposed to behave in certain social ways that are not allowed in intensive farming. The newly hatched chick is predisposed to imprint on a parental figure. The sow is predisposed to wean her litter gradually as they grow up. Females of many farm species are predisposed to select a mate based on certain attributes. The chick will have been born in a hatchery and will never see its mother. It will grow up with hundreds or thousands of other chicks of the same age. The piglet may be weaned and mixed with numbers of other unknown pigs at an age when it would still be spending much of its time with the sow.151 Artificial insemination is now used for at least 60% of breeding sows in Europe and North America and for the large majority of the dairy cows in developed countries. Breeding boars are often kept solitary in pens and ‘milked’ for their semen. Cattle semen (and sometimes embryos) can be frozen and sold throughout the world.
Frustration of nesting behaviour
We have seen that hens have a very strong motivation to lay their eggs in a nest and experiments show that they will ‘work’ hard for access to a nest box. At the time they are about to lay an egg, hens ‘search frantically for a nest box, suspending all other behaviour to do so’, according to a leading animal welfare expert at Oxford University. She concluded that ‘at least once a day, the millions of hens that are confined to cages without nest boxes experience a strong sense of frustration at not being able to find one’. Breeding sows have a strong motivation to build a nest of sticks, grass and other materials where they can give birth to their piglets. In farming conditions, they build nests of straw when that is available. Even when they are in a barren pen without straw, sows will try to go through the motions of nest building on the floor. Even sows confined in narrow farrowing crates try to redirect their nest building activity to the bars of the crate.
Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Wageningen recently found that pigs about to give birth had higher levels of stress hormone when they were kept in crates rather than in pens, where they had more space and could carry out more nest building activity. This was the case even if the pens had no straw, when the sows nosed and pawed at the floor. The scientists concluded that the space restriction in the crate was ‘stress-inducing’ for the pigs and produced‘an aversive psychological state’. Over time, as they get more experience of having litters, the sows in straw pens appear to improve their nest building, whereas the sows who continue to farrow in bare farrowing crates do less nest building, possibly giving up the attempt.
‘Almost everything about the way they are kept is abnormal… From a psychological point of view, they are a wild animal stuffed into an artificial containment system.’ The natural family behaviour of animals is often ignored in modern commercial farming. Scientists are aware that their natural behaviour may be ‘ill suited to the unnatural physical and social environment’ that the animals are kept in. Farm animals are predisposed to behave in certain social ways that are not allowed in intensive farming. The newly hatched chick is predisposed to imprint on a parental figure. The sow is predisposed to wean her litter gradually as they grow up. Females of many farm species are predisposed to select a mate based on certain attributes. The chick will have been born in a hatchery and will never see its mother. It will grow up with hundreds or thousands of other chicks of the same age. The piglet may be weaned and mixed with numbers of other unknown pigs at an age when it would still be spending much of its time with the sow.151 Artificial insemination is now used for at least 60% of breeding sows in Europe and North America and for the large majority of the dairy cows in developed countries. Breeding boars are often kept solitary in pens and ‘milked’ for their semen. Cattle semen (and sometimes embryos) can be frozen and sold throughout the world.
Frustration of nesting behaviour
We have seen that hens have a very strong motivation to lay their eggs in a nest and experiments show that they will ‘work’ hard for access to a nest box. At the time they are about to lay an egg, hens ‘search frantically for a nest box, suspending all other behaviour to do so’, according to a leading animal welfare expert at Oxford University. She concluded that ‘at least once a day, the millions of hens that are confined to cages without nest boxes experience a strong sense of frustration at not being able to find one’. Breeding sows have a strong motivation to build a nest of sticks, grass and other materials where they can give birth to their piglets. In farming conditions, they build nests of straw when that is available. Even when they are in a barren pen without straw, sows will try to go through the motions of nest building on the floor. Even sows confined in narrow farrowing crates try to redirect their nest building activity to the bars of the crate.
Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Wageningen recently found that pigs about to give birth had higher levels of stress hormone when they were kept in crates rather than in pens, where they had more space and could carry out more nest building activity. This was the case even if the pens had no straw, when the sows nosed and pawed at the floor. The scientists concluded that the space restriction in the crate was ‘stress-inducing’ for the pigs and produced‘an aversive psychological state’. Over time, as they get more experience of having litters, the sows in straw pens appear to improve their nest building, whereas the sows who continue to farrow in bare farrowing crates do less nest building, possibly giving up the attempt.
Disruption of social relationships
In natural conditions, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry form social groups with familiar members and understood relationships, and these groups are rarely joined by unknown animals. This appears to minimise conflict, fear and stress. Many commercial farming methods cause social problems for the animals by joining unnaturally large numbers of animals together, by changing or splitting up groups and mixing unfamiliar animals, for the convenience of farming practice. Animals are often sold on to different farms at different stages of their rearing or reproductive lives, to join unfamiliar animals. Unnatural social groups make conflict more likely. The animals may not be able to recognise all the others in their flock or herd, especially if the group is unnaturally large. Fights, fear and stress are likely to be caused when animals are removed or new animals join even small groups. The confined conditions and overcrowding may often make it impossible for weaker animals to avoid or get away from more dominant animals that bully them, or to get to food. Pigs are well known to have confrontations and fights when they are mixed with unfamiliar pigs, because they have to establish a new social hierarchy; this is particularly stressful for piglets when they are removed from their mothers and put together with unknown pigs at weaning. In large or crowded feedlots for beef cattle, some animals who are unable to escape from harassment by dominant steers become so weak that they collapse. Scientists believe this so-called Buller Steer Syndrome may be the result of ‘chronic social stress’ in feedlots. Problems of social conflict among the animals are often ‘solved’ on intensive farms by confining animals in small stalls or cages.
Prevention of natural activity
Intensive farming systems prevent animals from carrying out natural behaviour
such as exploring, foraging and grooming
Farm animals kept in barren conditions indoors are often unable to carry out many of the activities that are important to them. This may frustrate their strong motivation to forage for food, to explore in a complex environment and to groom and preen.
Laying hens
Laying hens kept in cages are deprived of nearly all their natural behaviour. They are unable to forage, to peck and scratch on the wire floor, to dust bathe or to stretch their wings. Caged hens will still go through the motions of having a dust bath, by squatting down, raising their feathers, rubbing themselves on the floor and flicking imaginary dust onto their backs. If they are then given access to litter material for a dust bath, ‘They do it over and over again, apparently making up for lost time when they were unable to do the real thing’.Pecking is a natural behaviour that would normally take up much of a hen’s day. In the unnatural conditions of commercial farming, some hens turn to pecking at the feathers and bodies of other hens. This may be linked to the frustration of the hens’ motivation to forage or dust bathe. Feather pecking is a serious problem in farming, since the hens can seriously injure or even kill each other. Hens (whether kept in cages or free to move about in barns) are often de-beaked to reduce the amount of damage they can do to each other, but this also prevents them from carrying out normal exploratory behaviour.
Pigs
Intensively farmed pigs are most often kept indoors on concrete or slatted floors, where they cannot carry out their natural foraging and exploring behaviour. In natural conditions, pigs spend much of their time in rooting, sniffing around for food, and chewing. Animal behaviour experts believe that ‘rooting may constitute a need in its own right in pigs’. Pigs show how important this behaviour is to them by the way they still go through rooting motions, directed at the bare floor or the pen, for much of their time even when no rooting materials are provided. A minority of breeding sows are kept outdoors in fields, where they have access to earth and grass. However, the sows are often nose-ringed, to prevent them from digging up the land. Nose rings cause the sow pain if she tries to root and inhibits her from carrying out this natural behaviour.
such as exploring, foraging and grooming
Farm animals kept in barren conditions indoors are often unable to carry out many of the activities that are important to them. This may frustrate their strong motivation to forage for food, to explore in a complex environment and to groom and preen.
Laying hens
Laying hens kept in cages are deprived of nearly all their natural behaviour. They are unable to forage, to peck and scratch on the wire floor, to dust bathe or to stretch their wings. Caged hens will still go through the motions of having a dust bath, by squatting down, raising their feathers, rubbing themselves on the floor and flicking imaginary dust onto their backs. If they are then given access to litter material for a dust bath, ‘They do it over and over again, apparently making up for lost time when they were unable to do the real thing’.Pecking is a natural behaviour that would normally take up much of a hen’s day. In the unnatural conditions of commercial farming, some hens turn to pecking at the feathers and bodies of other hens. This may be linked to the frustration of the hens’ motivation to forage or dust bathe. Feather pecking is a serious problem in farming, since the hens can seriously injure or even kill each other. Hens (whether kept in cages or free to move about in barns) are often de-beaked to reduce the amount of damage they can do to each other, but this also prevents them from carrying out normal exploratory behaviour.
Pigs
Intensively farmed pigs are most often kept indoors on concrete or slatted floors, where they cannot carry out their natural foraging and exploring behaviour. In natural conditions, pigs spend much of their time in rooting, sniffing around for food, and chewing. Animal behaviour experts believe that ‘rooting may constitute a need in its own right in pigs’. Pigs show how important this behaviour is to them by the way they still go through rooting motions, directed at the bare floor or the pen, for much of their time even when no rooting materials are provided. A minority of breeding sows are kept outdoors in fields, where they have access to earth and grass. However, the sows are often nose-ringed, to prevent them from digging up the land. Nose rings cause the sow pain if she tries to root and inhibits her from carrying out this natural behaviour.
"A sentient animal is one for whom feelings matter"
Professor John Webster, University of Bristol
Scientific research is constantly revealing new evidence of animals’ intelligence and emotions. This interest is reflected in burgeoning numbers of journals, books and reports. Professor Marian Dawkins of the Oxford University has called the study of animal sentience "one of the most exciting and the most important in the whole of biology."
There is now evidence that many animals can learn new skills and some appear to show emotions similar to human empathy. They can also be reduced to a state resembling human depression by chronic stress or confinement in a cage. This new understanding of the sentience of animals has huge implications for the way we treat them and the policies and laws we adopt. suggesting that pigs feel best able to carry out their natural behaviour when kept outside on earth.
There is now evidence that many animals can learn new skills and some appear to show emotions similar to human empathy. They can also be reduced to a state resembling human depression by chronic stress or confinement in a cage. This new understanding of the sentience of animals has huge implications for the way we treat them and the policies and laws we adopt. suggesting that pigs feel best able to carry out their natural behaviour when kept outside on earth.
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FARM TO FRIDGE - THE TRUTH BEHIND MEAT PRODUCTION
Mercy For Animals presents Farm to Fridge. Narrated by Oscar-nominee James Cromwell, this powerful film takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration behind the closed doors of the nation's largest industrial farms, hatcheries, and slaughter plants -- revealing the often-unseen journey that animals make from Farm to Fridge.
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Animals SlaughteredThese are the numbers of animals killed worldwide by the meat, egg, and dairy industries since you opened this webpage. These numbers do NOT include the many millions of animals killed each year in vivisection laboratories. They do NOT include the millions of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters every year. They do NOT include the animals who died while held captive in the animal-slavery enterprises of circuses, rodeos, zoos, and marine parks. They do NOT include the animals killed while pressed into such blood sports as bullfighting, cockfighting, dog fighting, and bear-baiting, nor do they include horses and greyhounds who were exterminated after they were no longer deemed suitable for racing.
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Animals Slaughtered:
0 marine animals |