When you concentrate on animal cruelty, you would possibly consider chained-up canines left to endure within the chilly, stray cats struggling to outlive on the streets, or depressed polar bears on the zoo. As horrible as many cats, canines, and zoo animals have it, the animals which are each probably the most quite a few and which have it worst — by far — are farmed animals.
However the largest drawback they face isn’t essentially the merciless, overcrowded, unsanitary manufacturing unit farm, the place the overwhelming majority of animals raised for meat, milk, and eggs are confined. Neither is it the inhumanity of the slaughterhouse. Quite, probably the most extreme animal welfare drawback in at this time’s meat business is essentially invisible to the bare eye. I’m speaking about their genes.
Probably the most stark instance is the rooster, which accounts for round 95 p.c of animals raised for meals within the US, at 9.4 billion birds. Globally, over 75 billion chickens are slaughtered yearly.
Over the past 80 years, the poultry business has considerably altered chickens’ genetics, breeding them to develop as massive as potential in as little time as potential, all in an effort to shortly and effectively pump out increasingly rooster. In 1960, it took 9 weeks, or 63 days, within the US for a rooster to succeed in slaughter weight at a tiny 3.35 kilos.
By 2024, in line with the US commerce group Nationwide Hen Council, chickens reached slaughter weight in beneath seven weeks, or 47 days. They usually’re practically twice as heavy as chickens have been 65 years in the past, weighing in at 6.57 kilos.
This fast development takes an unlimited toll on the chickens’ our bodies, with many in ache because of lameness, or issue strolling. As I wrote final 12 months:
Amongst different traits, poultry firms selectively bred chickens to have larger breasts, the most beneficial half of the chicken. Consequently, at this time’s chickens are extraordinarily top-heavy in comparison with chickens of the previous.
Animal advocates say this transformation has turned the birds into “Frankenchickens” which are “prisoners in their very own our bodies,” which trigger various well being issues that result in untimely demise. Many chickens’ tiny legs can’t assist the load of their big breasts, resulting in accidents that may be so extreme that they wrestle to stroll to succeed in meals and water, leading to demise by dehydration or hunger.
Final 12 months, 6 p.c of US chickens raised for meat — greater than half a billion people — died on the farm and by no means even made it into the meals provide. That’s because of points together with illness unfold and issues from their fast development, like coronary heart failure and “sudden demise syndrome,” a considerably mysterious illness through which younger, fast-growing chickens — seemingly out of nowhere — flip over and die or briefly, intensely flap their wings and die.
I not too long ago lined an investigation into America’s fourth largest rooster firm, referred to as Mountaire Farms, which highlights a few of these issues. Investigators discovered some birds too weak to succeed in meals, and various lifeless and decaying birds amongst residing chickens.
Whereas chickens account for the overwhelming majority of animals raised for meals, all the important farmed species have been genetically altered to various levels within the US:
- Dairy cows at this time have been bred to supply virtually 8 gallons of milk each day, greater than 5 instances that of dairy cows within the Nineteen Forties; this intensive output is related to elevated metabolic stress, mastitis, and untimely demise, amongst different points.
- Like chickens, pigs have been bred to develop larger, which may trigger mobility issues.
- For the reason that Nineteen Nineties, feminine breeding pigs — most of whom are confined in tiny crates for his or her whole lives — have been selectively bred to supply virtually 40 p.c extra piglets per litter, which may have an effect on each their well being and that of their piglets.
- Between 1977 and 2007, beef cattle turned 30 p.c heavier at slaughter, and reached their slaughter weight 20 p.c sooner.
- Turkeys within the early 2000s grew twice as quick, and twice as massive, in comparison with turkeys from the Sixties.
- Within the late Nineteen Forties, hens laid 137 eggs yearly, which has since greater than doubled to 290 eggs per 12 months. Egg-laying hens’ extremely excessive output has led to bone fragility and excessive charges of fractures.
This fixed tinkering with the genetics and reproductive programs of farmed animals has enabled the livestock business to squeeze extra meals out of every animal and make meat, milk, and eggs cheaper, thereby growing consumption of those meals — a vicious cycle that has led to animal struggling on an unfathomable scale.
The issue has additionally been largely invisible to customers, which has made it troublesome for animal advocates to make progress. Many meals firms have pledged to purchase meat from slower-growing chickens within the US, however few have adopted by way of, although there was some progress in Europe.
Banning probably the most obvious merciless livestock business practices — like tiny cages, searing off hens’ beaks, or reducing out male piglets’ testicles with out anesthesia — could also be apparent and wise issues to do within the eyes of most customers. However “higher genetics” isn’t as intuitive and doesn’t fairly have the identical ring as “ban cages” or “cease mutilating animals.” It’s additionally a extra elementary problem to manufacturing unit farms’ enterprise mannequin.
But breeding and genetics are simply as, if no more, essential than anything policymakers and meat firms might do to cut back the struggling of billions of animals on America’s manufacturing unit farms.
