Animal suffering

[CopticChristian]

Originally Posted by spencelo

Does Judaism endorse factory farming?

Spence,

OT Judaism or Rabinnical Judaism?

[CopticChristian]

Originally Posted by spencelo

Is it wrong, on the Catholic view, to torture animals unnecessarily? If so, why doesn't the Catholic Church advocate the eradication of factory farming, where billions upon billions of animals are slaughtered every year and are forced to reside in horrible conditions?

I highly recommend this paper by Stuart Rachels: http://www.jamesrachels.org/stuart/veg.pdf

Abstract: Over the last fifty years, traditional farming has been replaced by industrial farming. Unlike traditional farming, industrial farming is abhorrently cruel to animals, environmentally destructive, awful for rural America, and wretched for human health. In this essay, I document those facts, explain why the industrial system has become dominant, and argue that we should boycott industrially produced meat. Also, I argue that we should not even kill animals humanely for food, given our uncertainty about which creatures possess a right to life. In practice, then, we should be vegetarians. To underscore the importance of these issues, I use statistics to show that industrial farming has caused more pain and suffering than the Holocaust.

Spence,

I have no idea what you are talking about. Is it wrong on the Catholic view? Explain what this means before anything else.

What are you trying to say here, Is it wrong on the Catholic view to torture animals unnecssarily? Where is the Catholic view expressed cocerning animals?

[Angelsflight]

Originally Posted by vsedriver

A simple solution to this problem is to not buy meat produced on a factory farm. Sure it will cost a little more but at least you won't feel so guilty. I have a friend who raises my pork and chicken and my next door neighbor raises my beef. I can see the cows every day. I even rescued a calf one day who got a piece of plastic stuck on his lower jaw. Stupid people often throw trash at animals not realizing that they might try to eat it.

All the animals are pasture raised and in the case of the beef, pasture bred and raised. Bulls up close are HUGE!

so if you don't buy factory farm meat they will go out of business.

Good advice. I know there are lots of places that sell humane products, eggs from free range chickens, etc....and that is great.

My personal belief is that animals are very special, innocent beings that definitely feel pain and they do get depressed. To be born and have a horrible life simply to end up on someone's plate is terrible. Not that I begrudge other people eating meat. I don't at all. I just think that for the time that they are alive, they must be treated with care and respect. They must be given room to walk around, a respectable place to sleep, and proper food. And be killed as humanely as possible.

But you are right. Not buying from these abusive farm factories is a great start.

[vera dicere]

You people want affordable eggs and bacon? Then factory farming is the response. Our Governments and system of free market demands that they only way to fill the demand for those products in particular, is factory farming.

The moment you compare factory farming to the Holocaust, that's when you cross that line from someone who is concerned about animal welfare, to someone who's absolutely bat kaka crazy and should be avoided at all costs.

I grew up on a farm, we had "battery hens" and they were fat, plump, and from all appearnaces "happy". Animals do not suffer the way we do. They do not understand suffering in the sense we do. Animals who are in conditions that we think cause them to "suffer" are responding from a biological sense that is pushing them towards survival. To compare teh suffering of some hen in a cage in a factory farm with a Jewish child led to the gas chambers is absolutely abhorrent!!

However, we as Christians and Jews, are instructed to care for God's creatrues and be stewarts of the earth. Chickens are better off outside in the sunshine, pecking about the dirt for bugs and seeds and such, they are in their natural state, however, they produce less eggs. If the family of 5 wants to ensure their kids are getting cheap protient, eggs are the best bet. Its very, VERY easy for people to judge that family or that individual who buys factory farmed produce. Its very easy for some upper-middle class white unviersity liberal to thumb her nose at that family when she has the income from mummy and daddy to buy free range eggs.

I buy free range products because I can afford it, and I think it tastes better, and I like to know the products I buy, the animals had a good life before their final trip. But would I put a child's health below some pig in a shed? Heck no! The child's needs come first.

It is very expensive for a farmer to go free range, all that land, less animals, less produce, that's why free range costs so much.

If we're serious about stopping factory farming, people need to become more self-sufficient, the govt. needs to make it easier and cheaper to buy larger sections of land, that way the individual family can have their own chickens and pigs and whatever else that are living in a more free ranged lifestyle.

Posting animal rights rants on the internet and comparing battery hens with the innocent Jews who died in concentration camps will not help. Things need to change at a governmental level, at a regional level and at an individual level.

[epan]

Originally Posted by vera dicere

You people want affordable eggs and bacon? Then factory farming is the response. Our Governments and system of free market demands that they only way to fill the demand for those products in particular, is factory farming.

The moment you compare factory farming to the Holocaust, that's when you cross that line from someone who is concerned about animal welfare, to someone who's absolutely bat kaka crazy and should be avoided at all costs.

I grew up on a farm, we had "battery hens" and they were fat, plump, and from all appearnaces "happy". Animals do not suffer the way we do. They do not understand suffering in the sense we do. Animals who are in conditions that we think cause them to "suffer" are responding from a biological sense that is pushing them towards survival. To compare teh suffering of some hen in a cage in a factory farm with a Jewish child led to the gas chambers is absolutely abhorrent!!

However, we as Christians and Jews, are instructed to care for God's creatrues and be stewarts of the earth. Chickens are better off outside in the sunshine, pecking about the dirt for bugs and seeds and such, they are in their natural state, however, they produce less eggs. If the family of 5 wants to ensure their kids are getting cheap protient, eggs are the best bet. Its very, VERY easy for people to judge that family or that individual who buys factory farmed produce. Its very easy for some upper-middle class white unviersity liberal to thumb her nose at that family when she has the income from mummy and daddy to buy free range eggs.

I buy free range products because I can afford it, and I think it tastes better, and I like to know the products I buy, the animals had a good life before their final trip. But would I put a child's health below some pig in a shed? Heck no! The child's needs come first.

It is very expensive for a farmer to go free range, all that land, less animals, less produce, that's why free range costs so much.

If we're serious about stopping factory farming, people need to become more self-sufficient, the govt. needs to make it easier and cheaper to buy larger sections of land, that way the individual family can have their own chickens and pigs and whatever else that are living in a more free ranged lifestyle.

Posting animal rights rants on the internet and comparing battery hens with the innocent Jews who died in concentration camps will not help. Things need to change at a governmental level, at a regional level and at an individual level.

In currency adjusted for inflation, food in America costs about 50% what it cost 50 years ago, and the average male was more then 20 pounds lighter at the same height. Bad cheap food is killing us and creating misery insofar as the low price encourages gluttony.

Balanced against this is the fact that throughout the world, the starving population is smaller than ever, as a percentage of total population.

So, how do you balance the suffering of an animal raised in one of these hellish farms to the suffering of a child or elderly person, who would otherwise go malnourished or starve?

[JaKael02]

Originally Posted by spencelo

Is it wrong, on the Catholic view, to torture animals unnecessarily? If so, why doesn't the Catholic Church advocate the eradication of factory farming, where billions upon billions of animals are slaughtered every year and are forced to reside in horrible conditions?

I highly recommend this paper by Stuart Rachels: http://www.jamesrachels.org/stuart/veg.pdf

Abstract: Over the last fifty years, traditional farming has been replaced by industrial farming. Unlike traditional farming, industrial farming is abhorrently cruel to animals, environmentally destructive, awful for rural America, and wretched for human health. In this essay, I document those facts, explain why the industrial system has become dominant, and argue that we should boycott industrially produced meat. Also, I argue that we should not even kill animals humanely for food, given our uncertainty about which creatures possess a right to life. In practice, then, we should be vegetarians. To underscore the importance of these issues, I use statistics to show that industrial farming has caused more pain and suffering than the Holocaust.

Spencelo -

Are you a vegan/vegetarian? I'm a vegetarian.

When I first came Catholic I had a strong animal rights stance. I had issue that the CC did not outlaw the usage of meat (due to factory farming). I then realized after deeper consideration that their view is animal friendly and the context of their teaching is reasonable.

See below for our most current Pope's comments:

Pope has spoken movingly about the exploitation of all beings, particularly of farmed animals. When he was asked about the rights of animals in a 2002 interview, he said, "That is a very serious question. At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God's creatures . . . Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."

Cardinal Ratzinger was echoing official church teachings, as laid out in the Catholic Catechism, which states clearly that ?Animals are God-s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals. . . . It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.-

If I may ask, what part of the CC teaching regarding animals do you struggle with?

Kindly,
James

[NeedsMercy]

Just a couple of things...

No, we do not have any right to equate the lives lost during the Holocaust to the suffering of animals. While humans and animals both have souls, ours is of a higher order. We have immortal souls, and thus, possess dignity.

To say that if one does not see animal abuse in one's house, it does not occur anywhere is flawed. Yes, most farm factories are probably very respectable places who do not purposefully maltreat animals; however, there are the exceptions. I refer any of those who are interested to the organization "Mercy for Animals"

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/

They have investigated many reports of animal abuse. Most are individual occurrences, but some are inherent in the nature of the business itself. For example, in the egg producing business, it is common practice to sex chicks after birth. Females go on to produce more eggs. Males are destroyed. This is done by throwing the still living chicks in grinders. That's the way it is. Trying to get this business process changed is met with a lot of opposition, of course. In fact, one of MFA's tactics is to imbed an investigator e.g., a photographer, in a factory where abuse is suspected. Those in the farm factory business decry this and urge their state and local governments to prohibit this practice. They do not want MFA (or anyone else) to "misrepresent" themselves, I guess for fear of being found out. The fact that most governments have bought into this claptrap shows just how powerful an industry factory farming is. After learning about such things, I cannot understand how I am still not a vegan. I am ashamed.

One more nugget...

In the book "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ", Emmerich describes the Last Supper. At the point in the meal where the lamb must be sacrificed, Jesus is given the knife. As He slits the neck of the animal, Emmerich notes that the Lord grimaced at the action. I can only speculate that Jesus was identifying with the Lamb, who was soon to suffer for us. However, I also like to think that causing the death of one of His creatures was as distasteful to Him as it should be to us.

To me, the bottom line should be to pray for those who abuse animals, that they repent and do not continue their despicable behavior. Might be a good idea to start a continued prayer thread for this intention...

[Ridgerunner]

Originally Posted by spencelo

Then I suggest that you read up on the well-documented facts of factory farming -- the article I linked to is a good place to start.

Actually, it isn't, because it's full of misrepresentations. One hardly knows where to start.

Just a few things very quickly, about cattle. Maybe I will have time to return later. I have actually been around this stuff.
-Cutting calves ears is basically unheard-of among cattlemen. I do understand they used to do this decades ago for identification. I am around cattle and cattlemen all the time, and you just don't see it.
-Amost no cattle are branded anymore.
-I have seen dehornings and castrations. Calves will bellow when they're in pain, they almost always do during dehorning, but not afterward. Their perceptions are different from ours. Maybe 2/3 of young bulls exhibit pain during castration; perhaps 1/3 none at all. It's done when they are very young. After it's done, they exhibit no signs of pain whatever. Most cattle anymore don't have horns at all, and are therefore never dehorned. About the only horned cattle left anymore are "decorative longhorns" (nobody dehorns them) horned herefords (prevalent only out west) and shorthorns (same). Some Brahman mixes have very small horns. Some are dehorned, some aren't. The Angus which are now so prevalent in this country now, never have horns to start with.
-Beef cattle are fed in pastures, on grass, except in the northern corn-growing regions where corn farmers will feed corn "chops" or silage to their cattle. Not much of a "feeder's" life is spent in a feed lot. They're pasture-raised to fair size. Often they're then "backgrounded", usually on wheat fields, then to feed lots. Feed lot time is 80-120 days. No more than that. Some never go to feed lots, only the best of the best.
-Feedlot animals are not fed much in the way of actual grain. Mostly it's vegetation like sorghum or milo chops laced with byproducts like distiller's grain.
-Weaning takes about two weeks. The calf will bellow for its mother off and on for less than than a week. The mother will bellow for its calf perhaps a day. After maybe three days to a week, the calf calms down. All the while, the calf is fed generously. Some do feed some amount of grain by-product, but it's mostly hay. Hay is grass. Once a calf is weaned, the calf and its mother are indifferent to each other. They are not "sentimental" the way humans are.
-Big commercial feed lots are nasty from a human perspective. But cattle will get just as nasty in a small space on a farm. In neither place is there any way to tell whether they like it, hate it or are indifferent to it. Having segregated a lot of cattle in my time, I would say they're indifferent. But even in an open field in the wintertime, they'll befoul the areas where they eat hay or grass. We notice it then because the grass isn't growing. In the summer, we don't notice it because of the grass, unless we step in it, but they're just as dirty then.
-Mother beef cows are kept on the farm until they die, are decrepit or don't have calves anymore. Twenty years is a mighty old cow, but it's not at all uncommon to retain a healthy, fertile cow into its teens.
-Very few ranchers feed any grain to their cattle. It's stupid to do it. It's even more stupid to confine cattle, and in the big cattle growing states nobody does it.
-Only a very stupid rancher will abuse cattle. It ruins the hide and the meat. An abusive rancher will go broke more often than not. When an 800 lb steer will bring you over $1,000, you treat it as carefully as you would any $1,000 asset.

[Ridgerunner]

I have to go for now, but before I do, I want to comment on this from the article:

"Poor sanitation and stress make the cows ill. Also, they’re fed grain, which they didn’t
evolve to eat."

This is just nonsense. Cattle in pastures eat "grain" all the time. Grain is nothing but grass seed. Wheat is a grass. Corn is a grass. Oats are a grass. Cattle eat large amounts of grass seed in pastures. Some grasses produce little, some produce a lot. Some grass seed is as rich or richer than wheat or corn. You can actually see the differences in their appearance when they're eating grass that has a lot of seed. They look just like grain-fed, because that's what they are.

And they are quite capable of eating it without ill effect.

[SamH]

Originally Posted by triumphguy

So you've never been in a factory farm then.

Or is your definition of horrible not the same as mine?

Just curious - have you?

Animals that are made to suffer are subject to high stress, diseases, low weight gain, low productivity, decrease pregnancy and a whole host of other ailments that would lower a farmer's profits.

[SamH]

Originally Posted by spencelo

So, no matter what the facts say, you're just going to insist otherwise?

What facts?

Mine assertions are based on first hand observations and working in the farming industry for 40+ years.

[triumphguy]

Originally Posted by SamH

Just curious - have you?

Animals that are made to suffer are subject to high stress, diseases, low weight gain, low productivity, decrease pregnancy and a whole host of other ailments that would lower a farmer's profits.

Yes I have - there's a ton of feed lots, pork farms, and chicken farms round here.

I've driven round feed lots where the animals are almost belly deep in rancid stinking manure.

And pig farms where the pigs were so overcrowded they were piled on top of each other - there wasn't enough floor space for them all to stand.

Lower profit per animal perhaps - factor in more animals with lower expenses though and you got more profit.

Animals aren't necessarily made to suffer- they are allowed to suffer.

More land, more space per animal, more air, more light - they all cost the farmer because they need bigger buildings, different handling systems etc.

[SamH]

Weaning takes about two weeks. The calf will bellow for its mother off and on for less than than a week. The mother will bellow for its calf perhaps a day. After maybe three days to a week, the calf calms down. All the while, the calf is fed generously. Some do feed some amount of grain by-product, but it's mostly hay. Hay is grass. Once a calf is weaned, the calf and its mother are indifferent to each other. They are not "sentimental" the way humans are.

I wondering if people have have ever seen a human weaned? Not many twenty year olds still nursing at their mother's breast.

Castration today usually involves a rubber band. Dehorning is mostly accomplished through breeding.

[SamH]

Originally Posted by triumphguy

Yes I have - there's a ton of feed lots, pork farms, and chicken farms round here.

I've driven round feed lots where the animals are almost belly deep in rancid stinking manure.

And pig farms where the pigs were so overcrowded they were piled on top of each other - there wasn't enough floor space for them all to stand.

Lower profit per animal perhaps - factor in more animals with lower expenses though and you got more profit.

Animals aren't necessarily made to suffer- they are allowed to suffer.

More land, more space per animal, more air, more light - they all cost the farmer because they need bigger buildings, different handling systems etc.

So how do you get inside these buildings? The large hog farms I've been on are very selective about who is allowed to enter their confinement buildings (diseases) - this isn't stuff you see driving by at 55 MPH.

Anyone that doesn't even have enough floor space for their animals will soon see thousands of deaths - it just isn't done.

[triumphguy]

Originally Posted by SamH

I wondering if people have have ever seen a human weaned? Not many twenty year olds still nursing at their mother's breast.

Castration today usually involves a rubber band. Dehorning is mostly accomplished through breeding.

A rubber band which cuts off the blood supply allowing the testes to die. I'm not saying it's cruel, it's just not a "playful/playground" rubber band. For calves that are not handled often Burdizzo clamps are used.



I'm a meat eater. But I don't sentimentalize ranching - I live in Cowtown!