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Mutilation of Farm Animals
Animal mutilation is removing or destroying part of an animal for non-healing purposes. Factory farmed animals are commonly mutilated. Mutilation is an attempt to make the animals fit the conditions of the factory farm, rather than fit the farm around the animals. Conditions on factory farms are so severe that animals can injure and even cannibalise one another. Farmers try to suppress such behaviour by cutting off bits of the animals (for instance hen beaks and pig tails). Farmers give varied reasons for mutilating animals (see the Table below). The actual purpose of mutilation is to maintain the efficiency (minimise costs and maximise profits) of the factory farming system. 'Mutilation' is an emotive but commonly used term and without a satisfactory alternative term. Some authorities prefer to call mutilations 'surgical operations' - but this is clinical rambling that does not convey the reality. It is not surgeons but farmhands - with no special training and no anaesthetic for the animals - who most often carry out mutilations. Their treatment of animals ensures that many animals suffer chronic as well as acute mental and physical pain. The following table lists some of the more common mutilations on factory farms.
Also see the entry Factory Farming. Useful Sources for this EntryCode of Recommendations for the Welfare of Livestock: Meat Chickens and Breeding Chickens. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 2002. Accessed online October 2006.Mutilations Report. Report of Working Party established by RCVS Council to consider the mutilation of animals. Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. 1987. Accessed online October 2006. ›› To Entries & Home |
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