Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/71854/

I grew up on a decent sized chicken farm, with a cow farm next door, so I know a little bit about farm life. I've heard some crazy things about what supposedly goes on in farms like these, and how these animals hate their lives. The one that really irked me the most was a pamphlet that claimed chickens are packed in cages so tightly that their feet never touch the bottom. I know for a fact that there are specific regulations specifying exactly how much living space each chicken gets among other things, and they get stricter as the years go by.

In my personal opinion, farm animals have it better than wild animals. All the clean food and water they want is sitting right next to them, they live in a house, sheltered from the cold and snow, and they never have to worry about predators killing them in a gruesome fashion. That said, animals participating in research studies have it even better off. They get a veterinarian with several vet techs monitoring their environment very precisely for humidity and temperature, and they also check on the animals frequently to ensure they have no distress. Every single part of an experiment must be presented to the vet, and rationalized why it is necessary. Anesthesia must be administered before any operation, and the animal must be tested to ensure they don't feel pain before it can begin, and painkillers must be given until they have fully recovered.

My point is, I've experienced the farm life, and it doesn't match up to sensationalized secondhand accounts of what goes on there. If you're concerned animals aren't being treated well, drive by or take a tour of some local farms. If you don't like what you see, switch to free range or raise your own. If more people are willing to pay the higher price for free range animals, more farmers will make the switch. Just don't spread the farmer hate when you haven't seen it for yourself.

Just so nobody accuses me of not doing my research, I've been interested in animal husbandry and welfare for a while, and I actually have visited a lot of different kinds of farms and a few slaughterhouses, even.

There are some farms (mostly hobby farms) that are like little slices of heaven, with lots of pasture and animals generally healthy and able to have activities and social interactions appropriate to their species. A lot of commercial farms are not as great (sicker animals, more confinement, or more isolation), but you could still raise a family on the land, and people don't mind living next to those farms. There are also a whole lot of hyper-industrialized farms that are by all accounts awful to see and that pollute the land and air for miles around, and according to all the reports I've ever read (and I too try to avoid the sensationalist stuff), that's how most animals in the country are raised--beef cows being a possible exception, but feedlot finishing is often objectionable even though it's a relatively small fraction of their lives.

It sounds like you grew up near some of the better farms, but unfortunately, that doesn't mean that really bad places don't exist or are uncommon.

And I completely agree that people should take more interest in their food sources and educate themselves about how their food is raised/grown. The problem is that this is not possible if you like to eat fast food burgers or Tyson chicken (which is why people should eat much, much less meat from these unknown, most likely inhumane sources).

I guess I always just assumed that other farms were like those around me. I thought that there were regulations preventing the inhumane practices I had heard of, although I haven't done much research beyond my own town.