Animal Confinement and Cannabalism

Ain't CAFOs grand?

'Hundreds of millions of animals are forced to live in cages or crates just barely larger than their own bodies. While one species may be caged alone without any social contact, another species may be crowded so tightly together that they fall prey to stress-induced cannibalism.

Cannibalism is particularly prevalent in the cramped confinement of hogs and laying hens. Unable to groom, stretch their legs, or even turn around, the victims of factory farms exist in a relentless state of distress. 'When animals are intensively confined and under stress, as they are on factory farms, their autoimmune systems are affected and they are prone to infectious diseases,' reports veterinarian Dr. Bruce Feldmann. 'When animals are treated with care, there is no need for continuous low-level antibiotic feed additives. It is as simple as that.''

That's a curious article, an oddly slapped-together mix of esoteric AR history and theory and AW. It's like he views the reader as someone who has lived in complete isolation and feels he has to educate and convince them historically and logically why they should take the suffering of animals into consideration before describing some conditions he finds deplorable.

[snip]

And that's probably why vegans don't want them to be born, because they believe livestock farming and their early slaughter is a valid form of abuse.

· Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever we think about the fact that the animals are going to be killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part of their life by being raised for food, but instead they are experiencing whatever life they get as a result of it. ·

'That fact', as you call it is taken into consideration and then weighed against the other fact you pointed out where 'the ones who are abused would be better off never living.' Vegans who believe animals hold a right not to be farmed and killed understand such a rights violation to be a form of abuse, and like you they conclude that such animals would be better off never having been born in the first place.

Wrong; they are killed prematurely and therefore 'cheated' out of *a part* of their life when slaughtered for food. Why do you claim they aren't cheated out of *any part* of their life when it's clear they are when slaughtered so young?

But, as you carefully noted, if that life is a life of abuse, as also noted by vegans, then they should never be born in the first place.

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Factually untrue. The average life expectancy at birth of farmed cattle and sheep is greater than the average life expectancy at birth for similar species born in the wild. So before slaughter their life has in nearly all cases been extended.

Farmed animals in the EU must receive treatment if they are ill, wild animals can be left to starve, and often are, in some cases they can be hunted, and in all cases no offence has been committed if a car driver smashes the animal's skull as it tries to cross a road. So who's been cheated?

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Michael Saunby

Because the alternative is not a longer life. The alternative is no life.

What if it's not a life of abuse?

(snip)

Wrong. ARAs want extended lifespans for existing farm animals and an end to all reproduction of domestic animals.

Face it, you don't understand ARAs and you never will. You'd need a compassionate heart and a bit of soul for that and you lack both.

[..]

His logic is that the only reason the animal is alive at all is due to the fact that it is farmed, and therefore the correct comparison is between 2-1/2 years and nothing, not 2-1/2 years and 15 years.

Although I am a meat eater and not a supporter of the concept of 'AR' as it's usually presented, I find this logic to be quite unacceptable and despicable actually. In fact the logic, if you can rightly call it logic, has a name, 'The Logic of The Larder' and it was nicely discredited by Animal Rights advocate Henry S. Salt here http://www.radioafrica.co.uk/henrysalt_docs/ Henry_Salt_Logic_of_the_L...