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31 Animal Welfare Inst. Q. 1 (1982-1983)

handle is hein.animal/awiqu0031 and id is 1 raw text is: THE ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE QUARTERLY P.O. Box 3650 Washington, D.C.20007 Spring 1982 Vol. 31, No. 1 Life in a hog factory What's it like in a hog factory? Ought we call them hog fac- tories given the sensitivities of some promoters of ever-more- intensive livestock raising to a term which some consider derog- atory? Let's take a look at the February, 1982 issue of Hog Farm Management in an attempt to get it straight from the industry's mouth. First, as to the word factory, on page 58 Dr Dave Bache, listed as ag economist, Purdue University, talks about records: Daily we record sows bred, sows farrowed, and pigs born. Greatest emphasis is on sows bred; we must breed 34 per week to keep our factory full. With 81/2 pages of Hog Farm Man- agement devoted to his economic advice, it would seem his phraseology is accepted. Bache's casual referral to gestation sow. This card moves with he crates, an area so small that the sow through the building complex until he can't even turn around in it, though next litter is weaned. Her card hang she is forced to remain there for the above her gestation crate and is fas four months of her gestation, also tened to a wire line by a spring clothe makes plain that this too, unfortunate- pin. (page 62) ly, is accepted. He refers to a producer Sows in gestation crates are subjec who writes a 3x5 card for each to fits of bar bitin in which they at tack the imprisoning bars in front of them. Photographs of sows biting the bars even appear sometimes in Hog Farm Management where they are ap- parently accepted as part of factory life. This stereotyped behavior, like the frequently documented side-to-side rocking of chimpanzees in cramped cages, is the sickly outlet which intelli- gent animals are forced into by ex- treme confinement. Those who hawk their wares in Hog Farm Management are aware of the stress placed on the animals. To quote a full-page ad by the pharmaceutical firm, Hoffman-LaRoche, STRESSES from confinement or adverse environ- mental conditions may increase vita- min needs in swine. continued on page 6 r r s s t Close-ups of battery hens Life in an egg factory What's it like in an egg factory? When the hens are first put into the battery cages in which they are destined to spend the rest of their lives, they are well feathered, good looking birds; but by the end of their single year of life, many feathers have been reduced to mere quills because the birds are so closely packed in the small cages that they rub the feathers away. In ad- dition, frustrated cage mates peck, them or actually stand on them for lack of space so that their backs may become entirely bare -and this despite the fact that they have been debeaked, that is, the upper mandible has been burnt off. Sometimes the aberrant behavior fostered by the extreme overcrowding pro- gresses to actual cannibalism. At the end of their ordeal, the surviving hens are sold for canned chicken soup. continued on page 8 (p3 09 Veal calf in the narrow stall to which it is confined for life. (See pages 9 & 10.)

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