Ranee Mueller said:Quoted message said:A lot of food animals get to roam a bit. Laying chickens are tightly
confined, but meat chickens get the run of a large enclosure. Beef cattle,
pigs and lambs are usually pastured, at least given a chance to exercise a
bit. Veal calves are kept in tight enclosures and barley have room to step
out of their own [censored]. A friend of mine who raises cattle, both for sale and
to feed his family refuses to eat veal because he is so opposed to the way
it is grown.
This may be the way it is in Canada, but I doubt it unless you are
talking about small farm operations. Even so called "free range"
chickens only have to be outdoors an hour a day to qualify for that
title, and that includes being in their cages, but set outside.
There is a world of difference between the conditions of the layers and those
being raised for meat. Layers are kept in small cages. Chickens raised for meat
are picked up at the hatchery after they have been hatched, sexed and de-beaked.
The farmer sticks them into a barn with a huge open are and they have the run of
the place. There are heat lamps that they hand around when they are really young
and water and feed. They are fed for 6-8 weeks and then the farmer looks for a
buyer. Crews are brought in to cage the chickens and stick them in cages. When the
birds are all caught and caged they head off to the processing plant and a
cleaning crew comes to clean out the barn. They use Bobcats or similar small front
end loaders to scrape out the [censored], sweep it out, spray it down, dry it out and
then get ready for another batch of chicks.
Let me tell you. You don't want to be around when they are cleaning out those
chicken barns.
Quoted message said:Factory farmed poultry and meat are seriously confined in small
spaces, fed food that is unnatural for them and feedlots are notorious
for having diseased animals because of the crowding and the fact that
they are standing in their own feces, sometimes up to their shanks.. It
is disgusting. If veal are kept in tight enclosures, it is no different
than their adult compatriots, except that they perhaps have a lower
chance of catching disease from all the other animals confined with
them, since they are theoretically kept isolated.
I am not about to try to defend the means of producing veal, but I can tell you
that animals have a whole different set of hygiene standards than people have.
It is always annoying to spend 15 minutes mucking out a horse stable and paying
down new bedding for them and then bring the horse back in because they first
thing they do is urinate, and I am not talking a little tinkle like male dogs do
on trees to mark their territory. It is more like a gallon, and they do it right
in the middle of the stall. Then at night they lie down and sleep on that spot.
Just keep that in mind the next time you pet a horse and you think it stinks. :-)
