ANIMAL WELFARE

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ANIMAL WELFARE

• Carrie Adams
• Justin Butler
• Kelton Mason
• Rachel Speed
• Philip Vinson

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Animal Welfare Issues are Present in all Aspects

• On the Farm and Feedlot

• In Transit

• During Antemortem Handling

• During Slaughter

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On the Farm

• Dehorning of Calves
• Castration
• Branding
• Factory farming
• Growth hormones
• Ear notching and tail docking

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Dehorning and Tail docking

• Why dehorn?
• To prevent the bruising of meat
• Safer to handle Animals
• Why dock tails?
• hogs- prevent cannibalism
• sheep- prevent infections and to enhance
  conformation in show animals
• become common practice throughout the U.S.

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Castration

• Do at early Age
• To keep bad genetics out
• Improves meat palatability
• Improved methods of castration that are more
  humane

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Identification

• Branding
• Fire
• Freeze
• Ear Tags

• Ear Notching
• Ear notchers
• Knife
• Tattoos

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Growth Hormones

• Feed lot Cattle
• Feed Efficiency
• Increase gain
• Dairy Cattle
• increases milk production
• Animal activists do not believe in this type of
  manipulation

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Factory Farminglarge profits

• Corporate hog farms-
• crates
• confinement
• no social contact
• nurseries
• stress
• cannibalism
• feeding floors
• concrete
• crowded

• mass use of antibiotics
• close to 50 of all antibiotics produced in the
  US are administered into animal feeds

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Antemortem handling

• withholding from feed and water
• confined pen space
• abuse and neglect of downers
• use of hot shots and electrical prods
• proper handling facilities
• center track double rail restrainer

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Withholding feed and water

• Activists possibly are uneducated on purpose of
  this
• cruel
• more hungry because of enhancing hormones

• Purpose
• to facilitate evisceration
• Animals are only taken off feed, NOT water

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Confined pen space

• Holding pens
• animals packed tightly into pens
• can not lay down
• if they do they get trampled
• cement, no bedding

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Abuse of neglect of downers

• Downers- animals that are hurt and unable to move
  properly in some form or fashion
• employees mishandle these animals
• beat
• electrical prod
• drag

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Handling facilities

• route to knocking block
• narrow pathway with curves allows for easier
  movement
• center track double rail restrainer
• allows for more humane handling
• mainly used for cattle and sheep
• with these methods hot shots are not needed as
  much

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Handling systems in action
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Transportation

• Density
• Temperature
• Truck Requirements

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Density

• Cattle
• Horned
• Tipped
• Lambs
• Months of wool
• All
• Strength of Animals

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Distance Effect on Density

• Pigs Lambs
• over 2 hours needed to lie down
• 8 hour layover to rest on long trips
• low center of gravity does not increase bruising
  when they lie down

• Cattle
• Distance should not effect density
• Stocked tight enough to support them
• Unable to get back up if they do lie down
• Research has shown Tighter or Looser densities
  increase bruising

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Temperature Effects

• Pigs
• Below 10 degrees F
• Cover half of air holes
• Below 60 degrees F
• Need straw or shaving
• Above 60 degrees F
• Wet sand or shavings
• Above 80 degrees F
• Spray with water

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Temperature Effects

• Wind Chill
• Extremely windy in back end of truck
• Water effects cattles ability to insulate
• Sheep can be fresh shorn
• Relative Humidity
• Effects animals ability to cool themselves

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Truck Requirements

• Leak Proof Floors
• Stacked on top of each other
• Keep off highway
• Height
• Height is very important with today's taller
  cattle

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Truck Requirements

• Sanitation
• Remove all Feces Regularly
• Disease Transmission
• Cause Skin Blemishes on Pigs

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Death on The Truck

• Lambs
• Smother down
• heavy fleece
• Pigs
• overheat
• chill down
• Cattle
• bruising when they get down

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Slaughter Welfare Issues

• Stunning Methods and Procedures
• Electrical
• CO2
• Captive bolt
• Ritualistic Slaughter
• Properly sticking
• Shackling of animals

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Basic Causes of Animal Welfare Problems in
Slaughter

• Stressful Pre-Slaughter Handling

• Distractions that Impede Animal Movement

• Lack of Employee Training

• Poor Equipment Maintenance

• Poor Condition of the Animals Arriving at the
  Plant

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Proper Stunning

• Properly Maintain stunner
• Proper Placement of stunner

• Effectively Assessing Insensibility
• No Vocalization
• No Eye movement (if eyes open, blank stare)
• Legs may kick, but head must be limp, if it does
  contract it must become limp within 20 sec.
• Rhythmic breathing must stop, but short gasps are
  okay

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Results of 1996 and 1999 Audits
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Insuring Humane Slaughter

• Humane Slaughter Act of 1978
• Audits conducted periodically by USDA and major
  corporations
• The American Meat Institute Guidelines for proper
  slaughter
• Recommended Animal Handling Guideline for Meat
  Packers
• USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

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Conceptions and Misconceptions

• Animals with their eyes open are not necessarily
  alive.
• Involuntary reflexes occur postmortem.

• Animals are killed by the stunner.
• If not properly stunned the animal is alive
  throughout the slaughter process.

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Animal Welfare Organizations

• PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of
  Animals)
• Founded in 1980
• Dedicated to establishing and protecting animals
  rights.
• 700,000 members
• Not ours to eat, eat, experiment on, or use for
  entertainment.
• Focus on factory farms, laboratories, fur trade,
  and entertainment industry

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The solution for the meat industry is secrecy.

• HFA (Humane Farming Association)
• Founded in 1985
• Goals protect farm animals, the public, and the
  environment
• 150,000 members
• Abused animal refugee
• www.meat.org

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Activists campaigns

• Activists bare all for bovines (April 23)
• Battle of the Charities PETA Billboard
  challenges March of Dimes Animal Tests (April 23)
• Cokes got milk, PETA has a cow (April 17)
• PETA has beef with Burger Bullies (April 3)

• Modern intensive livestock agriculture
  significantly contributes to ecological threats,
  such as air and water pollution, soil erosion and
  depletion, the destruction of tropical rain
  forests and other habitats, and global warming,
  the wasteful use of water, fuel, land,
  fertilizer, and other agricultural resources, and
  the growth of disease-causing antibiotic-resistant
  bacteria. This industry must also share
  responsibility for the deaths of 15 to 20 million
  people per year because of hunger and its
  effects, as 70 percent of the grain produced in
  the United States and over one-third of the grain
  produced worldwide is fed to animals destined for
  slaughter. (www.meat.org)

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References

• www.grandin.com with additional links
• www.peta.org
• www.meat.org
• www.factoryfarming.com
• www.hfa.org
• www.animalcruelty.com
• www.merritt-equip.com