Why can't the RSPCA do something about factory farming?

Question

People in the UK may be watching the series of programmes on Intensive chicken farming. The way these poor creatures are treated is beyond disgusting and if I kept a pet in such conditions I would rightly be prosecuted. How do the factory farmers get away with it?

Answer 1

People are accustomed to cheap eggs, cheap poultry, cheap milk, cheap meat.  Probably most are unaware of the conditions the animals/poultry they consume were raised, fattened and killed.

It's anyones guess whether they'd change their choices of what they'd buy if they knew, or if they'd ever seen the inside of a slaughterhouse or poultry processing house.

But the money and power are on the side of agri-business.  Not small farmers.

People vote with their pocketbooks on these matters.

Answer 2

Barbara Currie had a go at decimating the poultry industry, why not get her back on the job!

And what happened to the little Lion?

Answer 3

Before the RSPCA can accomplish anything they must have the public support behind it. According to a new survey commissioned by Freedom Food - the UK's only farm assurance scheme dedicated to improving farm animal welfare - 91 per cent of Britons admit they know little or nothing about chicken farming.

The survey also revealed that 85 per cent of people don't realize that most indoor-reared chickens we eat are actually allocated less space than a hen in a battery cage - that's less space than an A4 piece of paper per bird. Texas R is correct that the consumers have brought about the factory farms by demanding more and cheaper food. For the RSPCA to be able to do anything about these conditions, they must make people aware of the conditions the chickens are under and let them know that their food prices are going up in order to correct it. Just appealing to people's emotions, much like PETA in the US, won't get the job done. People are smart, show them what is wrong, how it can be fixed, and what it will cost them. Most consumers will then be willing to make it work.

Answer 4

They don't have anywhere near the funding or the support that they would need to take on the farmers and supermarkets(who make a fortune), unfortunately.

Answer 5

Anglo, I suggest you put up a shed in your back yard and begin raising chickens for eggs and meat.  You can feed yourself and also sell the excess.  Give it a try.  The problem is 99% of the US population doesnt want to get their hands dirty and feel they want an urban job with better pay and sometimes they get benefits with their job as well.  My father said if you dont like it, do it yourself.  Unfortunately, too many people would rather complain about an issue than work on a solution.

Answer 6

I like in an area where there is 20 000 000 birds in 'factory farms' and my friends help look after it. They are subjected to numerous regulations and are more than willing to accomodate changes - the problem is how can you sustain this level of production without causing more halm to the animals. If you can come up with the answer, I know these people will implement the changes. The problems are that these animals are feral and if that aren't battery farmed, it is hard to produce them - so should we all stop eating chicken and eggs.

Answer 7

Are you prepared to double or triple your food budget while reducing both the quality and selection?  Farming is not a lifestyle, it is a business.  Less than 5% of the british population is actively involved in producing the food that 100% of the population MUST have, daily.

Farming, Factory Farming as you call it, has evolved to become one of the, if not the, most labor efficient businesses in the civilized world.  They also did this while reducing the cost to the average consumer.  In 1960, the USA was thought to be the Mecca of society.  One of the main reasons was the average individual in the US spent less than 1/3 of their disposable income on food while the rest of the world spent considerably more (I believe it was close to 40% in the UK at the time).  Now the average US individual spends less than 10% of their disposable income on food, and a large percentage of that is with prepared food.  The UK has followed that same pattern (spending less on food, and a higher percentage spent on prepared food).

This reduction in cost would not have happened without the "Factory Farming" you find so disgusting.

How do the Factory Farmers get away with it?  Simple, you urban/suburban dwellers forced them into it.  You're the ones that demanded higher quantity, higher quality, greater selection and a reduced cost.

Answer 8

The only way to get rid of factory farming is to stop buying cheap food and spend money on organic or free-range.  Businesses only exist when they are profitable and, if you stop buying cheap food, they stop making money; consequence is that they go out of business.  

... The same argument holds true for clothes, domestic goods, etc.  Unless we are prepared to support local production at a higher cost, then we end up supporting cheap production where "factory" conditions are not necessarily as regulated or as well-paid as our own.

M

Answer 9

Big business backing.

It cannot be justified if the welfare of animals is a key issue.

Answer 10

First off, I don't know about the RSPCA, but if PETA had their way we'd all be vegetarians whether we wanted to be or not.  No meat, eggs, milk, anything leather, no nothing.  A bunch of people who don't know a thing about producing food and they think they have the right to tell us how to do our business.

First off, farmers don't mistreat their animals.  Sur, there's the rare instance where some smuck starves his animals, but those people are as common as the recent nut case in Texas where a fellow killed his girlfriend, had her ear cooking in a pot on the stove and had flesh from her face stuck on a fork on the dinner table.  

Livestock are what farmers depend upon to make a living, and a mistreated or starved animal won't make you any money, so of course they're not going to abuse them.  

If you want to talk about chickens, I've raised them from the time I was 6 years old, so I know a thing or two about them.  First of all, about the only animal dumber than a chicken is a duck.  Are chickens poor helpless animals?  No way.  Chickens have mob mentality and will kill and eat their brethern.  One time I came home and found a hen with the left half of her face pecked away.  I could see her brain exposed, her eye and all the flesh on the left side was pecked away and she was still alive.  At least until I killed her to put her out or her misery.  I've had chickens peck the back of a moulting hen until her backbone was exposed, not just a little spot, but an area probably 4X6 inches.  I had to kill her too.  Chickens aren't kind enough to kill each other, they just eat them HALF to death, not all the way to death.  I've also had chickens peck away the a**s of chickens and leave them with their intestines trailing behind them, still alive and the other chickens still eating their intestines as they try to run away.  

Is it cruel for poultry producers to debeak and decomb their chickens?  Not at all since chickens will full bills will peck away another chicken's comb entirely and leave them with blood pouring down their faces.  Debeaking also keeps chickens from disembowling others.  

Hmmm, I find it interesting that PETA and all those other animal rights idiots only focus on the farmer's "cruelty" to their chickens and never mention the chickens cruelty to each other.

As if that's not enough, let's discuss horses.  The old lead mare will literally bite chunks of flesh from horses farther down on the totem pole.  I've seen horses with broken jaws after one of those "poor helpless horses"  kicked the holy c**p out of the other one.  And it's not always fighting, often times it's one bossy a$$hole reminding the others who's boss.

Goats?  When it comes to eating time, I've seen does back up and plow into the side of pregnant does and sending them sprawling.  Of course they miscarry shortly there after.

Sheep?  Last spring I had one old rip that didn't want to claim one of her lambs.  I locked her head into a stantion so the lamb could nurse.  This went on for a week until she laid on the little lamb and smothered it.  I know this was intentional because any time I'd remove her head from the stantion, she'd get the lamb against the wall and butt the h**l out of it.  Not just a butt, but get the little guy down and wail away.  She never came close to stepping on her favorite lamb, but she's stand on the other one and not move until I hit her over the head with a bucket.  She broke it's hind leg before she finally smashed it.  

So for any of you folks out there that feel sorry for those poor animals, stop by a farm and talk to the owner and see what kind of stories they have concerning the cruelty of one animal to another.

Answer 11

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Answer 12

legislature, contact your senator