Why would anyone believe that farm animals are badly treated these days?

Question

Looking at the answers so far it appears that most of us forget that the NEWS is a business. Would they report if there weren't some and I know it is a very small number of bad practises in place. They wouldn't have story would they? Anyone who has said that animals are kept in unnatural conditions. Can you tell me the natural environment for a chicken for instance? Have you been to a farm lately? The amount of legislative control in place for the production of food in this country is enormous do you really believe the authorities would let really bad practices go on all over the place?

Thanks all for your answers especially like the clips from U-Tube but then i had seen them before. Yes I have seen all those pieces of equipment Michael H and they have all been designed so that no intentional harm is likely for the animals they are used with and they are all intended to allow the farmer to adminster appropriate care to the animal. Without risking too much harm for themselves seems reasonable too me. Back to the video stuff sure I agree some pretty horrid things can happen to animals on a farm but you will note that in these instances the moral poor people involved were prosecuted by the authorities. There will always be bad people ..... don't judge all by the highlighted actions of the morally inept.

by the way the last two are the same video and te first one shows nothing more than workers putting turkeys into baskets ready for transport ????????

PLEASE NOTE that all the turkeys in the shots are stood on their feet I dont see any beaks missing and they certainly in the last video are making a bit of noise but then you would expect that.

Answer 1

I'm not sure about poultry but live stock is worth so much today, retailers will only accept the best possible animals.
It's in the farmers best interest to keep the animal in good conditions.

Answer 2

So, i take it from your question that you either have a farm or work for a large company prducing meat type produsts then?

There is footage that has been taken from farms showing the horrendous conditions that the animals are kept in. I'm not saying that every place is like that. I'm sure most small farms are quite good to their animals but the big multibillion companies are only interested in how much money they can make.

Answer 3

because there is undercover video footage of how the animals are treated before they end up on the plate. If you request a tour of a slaughterhouse, they will only show you the offices.

When an animal is genetically modified not to be able to walk, has never seen the sun, grass, or is forced to live in a small space with their own waste, we can't say this is 'natural' and the circle of life-- it's cruelty.

Answer 4

Because they are. People really ought to go out and check these things for themselves instead of relying on information from the other people. Write, call and visit places that grow and/or raise the food you eat. I saw for myself once where cows were crammed in yucky little steel fence things that were just big enough to fit the body into and their heads were stuck in between two bars and all they could reach was their food with hardly any room to move their necks around.

Edit: My grandparents were farmers so I've seen a healthy, abuse free farm in action.

Answer 5

Live stock may be worth so much now, but they are still (in a lot, not all) being kept in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Nowhere near as bad as poultry though, who still have their beaks chopped off and are kept in cages and often force-fed to plump up for the festive season. Even the so-called organic chickens are kept in these conditions, and free-range eggs still come from birds whose beaks have been removed.
In my opinion, I'd say that farm animals clearly are still being treated badly.

Answer 6

As well as chickens and turkeys, some pigs are also kept in small pens with barely enough room to move.

There are plenty of pig farms though (up around lincs and notts where the animals live in large fields with plenty of shelter if they need it.

If you can try to buy meat from a local butcher who can tell you where the animals came fromas opposed to to large supermarket, you can be sure the animals were trated well and slaughted humanely.

Answer 7

If I was hanging around in a confined area waiting until the day somebody came to kill me and take my flesh for food, I would not think I was being treated well. It would not matter if I had cable TV, air conditioning and my favorite band had a concert every day. The fact that I am there to die would make these comforts meaningless.

Answer 8

Because I've seen a video of a man on a turkey farm shoving his fist into a turkey's a vagina.

Answer 9

Just a wild guess, maybe some of us see it first hand.

Have you seen a lambing shed, a crush creep, a milking carousel or slaughter houses ?

Have you seen lambs being forced out by farmhands and endign up with broken legs or backs because they want to get home to watch TV rather than wait for the Ewe to birth naturally ?

Maybe you have smelt first-hand the awful urinary tract infections as a Ewe is left slowly to die over a few days because the farmers do not call a vet to save £7.50

How about lambs put into bin liners to stop the smell of thir decaying flesh permeating the shippon as they are slowly eaten alive by strike

How about rams being left lame in a field overnight to die because the farmer couldn't be bothered to get his quad bike and it was raining

All the above are just a snapshot of what i have personally seen in 2007.

Or, if you don't get chance to see it first hand, please feel free to tell me what is natural about these poultry conditions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4reGHTaxrk

Or playing baseball with live turleys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYGiJPOsDZc

I suppose this could be one way of rearing turkeys, but it woldn't be my choice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c426-morLU&mode=related&search=

Thanks for the opportunity to spread news of these appauling conditions.

Answer 10

Because they are. Livstock isn't raised on farms anymore; animals are raised on feedlots, packed cheek to jowl and have to be pumped full of antibiotics to keep disease from spreading and mutilated in order to keep them from killing each other out of sheer stress. "These days" animals are treated far worse then they were before farming became big business.