Animal Suffering
When you go out to eat and look at your thick
and juicy T-bone steak what
do you think about? When you look at that
gorgeous mink coat in the department
store what is going through your mind?
When you here that cigarette smoke causes
cancer in lab animals what is the
first thing that comes to mind? Chances are
that in each of these cases you
were not thinking about how the cow suffered
while it was being fattened up,
ho painful the trap was that caught those mink,
or the conditions those lab
animals hat to endure to develop that cancer. Most
people do not think about
these things. However, in this paper, you will be
enlightened on the pain and
suffering of animals in three different industries
and you will also hear
from the other side of this issue. First, one of the
biggest culprits of
animal suffering is the animal food industry. This is an
industry in which
people have a tendency to block out or ignore the animal
mistreatment; this
is done by disassociating oneself with the direct harm and
ignoring the
indirect harm (Harnack 133). A good start under this example in the
case of
pigs. Normally, pigs are intelligent animals capable of showing
affection.
They have very good senses of smell, which is why pigs have been used
as
hunting animals (Coats 31). This normal behavior is disrupted however in
the
food industry. Pigs are taken to slaughter at about twenty-four weeks of
age
when they are approximately 220 pounds (Coats 32). Pigs are usually
mass-caged
into groups that consist of other pigs of the same sex and age.
This can cause
excessive aggressiveness in the animals due to the stifling of
the natural
social orders, which are accomplished though mixing (Coats 33).
Due to
inactivity in cages, pigs become "bored" and do things such as gnaw on
the
bars of the cage or on the body parts of other pigs. Factory owners
attempt to
remedy this by doing things such as cutting off a piglet’s tail
shortly after
being born (Coats 33). There is also gender specific cruelty.
To reduce
aggressiveness, male pigs are castrated. Most of the time, this is
done without
anesthetic. This is a practice seen in other divisions of the
farm industry as
well (Coats 33). "A factory breeding sow [pig] averages two
and a half litters
a year and ten litters in a life time. With ten or eleven
piglets per litter,
she brings 100-110 piglets into the systems during the
first four to five years
of her life" (Coats 34). The pig factory owners try
to get the greatest amount
of piglets in the least amount of time. They do
this by trying to find the
optimum amount of time to leave a piglet with his
mother. The later a piglet is
weaned away from his mother, the better chance
it will live, however this is
time that the mother is not pregnant (Coats
34). Pigs confined in cages in
factories have a high rate of disease and
physical problems that range from
respiratory diseases to lame and broken
legs (Coats 45). Next, we have cows.
Cows have the "opportunity" to go
into three different division of the
farming industry: dairy cow, veal calf,
or beef cow (Coats 7). Firstly,
concerning milk cows, the only time that a
female cow produces milk is after she
has had a calf, and she only produces
for as long as the calf suckles (Coats
50). To keep the cows producing
milk, they must be impregnated about once a year
and give birth (Coats 56).
While a calf is still getting milk from its mother,
it drinks small
quantities about twenty times a day. The cow replenishes itself
as needed. In
the dairy farm, a cow is "sucked dry" approximately two to
three times per
day. This forces a cow to be over loaded and weighed down with
milk (Coats
50-51). When an exceptional cow is found, she is put aside for
breeding. She
is given drugs to induce the production of more eggs. These eggs
are
fertilized with the sperm of "super-bulls" and the embryos are implanted
into
different cows. This can cause problems if the calf implanted is larger
than
the mother can bear (Coats 56-57). Secondly, under cows, we have the
veal
calf. The main resource for veal calves is the calves of dairy cows
(Coats 61).
According to David Coats, "The concept is simple yet very
cruel; from birth,
calves are kept in solitary confinement in small wooden
crates, deprived of
mobility" (62). The diet of a veal calf consists of
little iron and fiber but
contains a high concentration of growth stimulant,
starch fats, sugars, etc.
This is the only food given; no water is
allowed. This diet makes the flesh of
the calf very pale which is optimum
(Coats 64). Veal calves are killed about
four months into their life. If the
calves were kept longer, they would die due
to their deprived diet and
psychological problems (Coats 62). Lastly, we have
the beef cow. The beef
industry is about a thirty billion dollar a year industry
in the U.S. (Coats
69). "In 1986, the average American consumed 78 pounds of
beef, accounting
for 7% of supermarket sales" (Coats 69). Beef cattle, unlike
other farm
animals are not packed into cages, because they produce nothing until
they
are taken to slaughter (Coats 71). Beef cattle are "out on the range"
at the
start of their lives. At about the last 100 days of life the cattle are
taken
into feedlots where they are crowded together and have no room to move
(Coats
71-72). "It used to take three years for a calf to become an adult
of
sellable weight—now, with new finishing techniques, calves are pushed
from
birth through to slaughter in just ten to eleven month"(Coats 72). When
cattle
are put into feedlots, they are separated into same age and sex. This
causes
problems similar to pigs when put in the same position. They are
denied the
development of their natural social order (Coats 73). Castration
is a common
occurrence in beef cattle. One reason is that it is said that
uncastrated meat
has a different and undesirable taste. Another reason for
cattle castration is
to make them more passive (Coats 75). "In surgical
castration, the scrotum is
cut open and the testes are cut off or just pulled
off. Common complications are
hemorrhage, infection, tetanus and maggot
infestation" (Coats 75). To
nonsurgically castrate cattle, a tight rubber
band like device is put around the
top of the testes. As the blood is
restricted, the testes eventually go numb,
decay, and fall off, but before
they go numb, the cattle go through a great deal
of pain (Coats 75). Another
quality control is dehorning. Cattle are dehorned
using chemicals which burn
out the root to prevent poking out of eyes and harm
to handlers when the
cattle are close together (Coats 77). Finally, in regards
to the farming
industry we will deal with chickens. There are two types of farm
chickens:
broilers and layers. Broilers are those raised for eating (Coats
81-82).
Between Europe and America, over 7.3 billion chickens are slaughtered
each
year (Coats 810. When laying chickens are hatched, they are separated
into
male and female by professional chicken sexers. The males are thrown out
because
they are not useful in laying and are unsuitable for eating (Coats
84). About
the same number of male chickens are hatched as female. This means
that millions
of chicks are pointlessly "left by the way side" (Coats 84).
Both broilers
and layers are forced to endure a debeaking process. This is
done by placing the
upper portion of the beak against a hot metal blade at
about 1500°F for
approximately two seconds (Coats 85). "Debeaking is the
cutting off of either
the entire tip of the beak or the top half of the beak,
the upper mandible"
(Coats 85). Some believe that the beak is like a nail and
can be cut with no
pain. The beak contains highly sensitive tissue within it
(Coats 85). The
industry says that chickens are debeaked to protect the
chickens from
themselves. In the confined and stressful crates and cages, the
chickens have a
tendency to become cannibalistic (Coats 86). When it comes to
broiler hens, the
object, again, is to produce the most and biggest in the
least amount of time
for the least amount of money (Coats 87). By the time
the chickens are ready for
slaughter, they have about a one half square foot
of room with which to barely
move (Coats 87). The social structure needed in
pigs and cows is more important
to chickens. The "pecking order" is an
essential part of their life. This is
disrupted by constant shifting of
chickens and cramped condition (Coats 87). The
next topic to discuss is
animal experimentation. About 25-35 million animals are
involved in research
testing and teaching each year in the U.S. (Fox 58).
Animals are used to
test the safety of products such as drugs, carcinogens,
cosmetics, etc. (Fox
60-61). Because there are 40 to 60 thousand chemicals in
common use, it is
pointless to test their combinations on animals because there
are so many
possible combinations. The animal tests become mere propaganda to
dispel
consumer worries (Fox 61). Often times when animals are used as
test
subjects, the laboratory condition needed for testing such as in the
case of
diseases. Psychological disruption, which might occur, can affect the
outcome of
experiments (Fox 62). In conclusion to animal testing, an ethical
consideration
in justifying this practice is as follows: "If the pain and
suffering to the
animal would be greater than the amount of pain and
suffering that a human might
fell under the same experimental conditions,
then the experiment should not be
permitted" (Fox 64). Lastly, we have
wildlife practices and the fur industry.
Furs are made from pain. Wild
animals are trapped in traps with steel teeth.
These animals can feel
this pain (Rohr 178). The leghold trap, the most common,
has been banned in
65 countries due to cruelness, yet in America it is legal
(Rohr 181). People
who try to refute cruelty to animals site that the Bible says
we should eat
meat. This is a fallacy. In Genesis 1:29-30 of the King James
Bible, it
says: And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which
is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the
fruit
of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast
of
the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth
upon
the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for
meat; and it
was so. Only after sin is introduced, which is later, do we see
eating of
animals. Scientists often say that to save a human, animals are
expendable, and
this is true, but in putting mascara on a rabbit’s eye, there
is no help.
Lastly, some say that animals can be treated anyway desired
because they make no
moral judgements and have a lack of ability to do so
(Harnack 29). It is
therefore the responsibility of humans to uphold the
moral obligation of taking
care of animals. In summation, this paper has
given evidence of pain and
suffering of animals involved in different
industries. From these examples, it
is clear that it is wrong of anyone to
intentionally inflict pain and suffering
on animals for the sake of human
enjoyment. Works Cited Coats C. David. Old
MacDonald’s Factory Farm: The
Myth of the Traditional Farm and the Shocking
Truth about Animal
Suffering in Today’s Agribusiness. New York: Continuum,
1989. Harnack,
Andrew, ed. Animal Rights: Opposing Viewpoints. Sand Diego:
Greenhaven,
1996. Fox, W. Michael. Inhumane Society: The American Way of
Exploiting
Animals. New York: St Martin’s, 1990. King James Bible. Nashville:
Thomas
Nelson Publishers, 1970. Rohr, Janelle, ed. Animal Rights:
Opposing
Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven,
1989.
Bibliography
Coats
C. David. Old MacDonald’s Factory
Farm: The Myth of the Traditional Farm and
the Shocking Truth about Animal
Suffering in Today’s Agribusiness. New York:
Continuum, 1989. Harnack,
Andrew, ed. Animal Rights: Opposing Viewpoints. Sand
Diego: Greenhaven,
1996. Fox, W. Michael. Inhumane Society: The American Way of
Exploiting
Animals. New York: St Martin’s, 1990. King James Bible. Nashville:
Thomas
Nelson Publishers, 1970. Rohr, Janelle, ed. Animal
Rights: Opposing
Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven,
1989.