Animal Management and Welfare Final Reflection

Considering my prior consistency with my ideals surrounding animal welfare, in this

reflection, I wanted to assess what level of animal care I am comfortable with supporting
specifically when it comes to meat and animal products. I do label myself as a vegetarian,
however, as I mentioned previously, there are a few exceptions where I do eat meat, the main one
of which being meat that I know was raised ethically. Systems that support animal welfare often
offer their animals the five freedoms (Mellor, 2016), but I found the Compassion in World
Welfare lecture to most helpfully categorize welfare into 3 aspects; animals with good welfare
have good physical health, psychological well-being, and are able to live in their natural state (or
as close to it as possible). So, at a base level, I would like those things to apply to all animal
product systems, but would that look different for mammals, birds, invertebrates, and fish? How
universally can a care level be applied?

When it comes to intensive meat farming, my views have not changed, and I still do not
eat meat as to not support these industries, despite the changes that are leading the UK in a better
direction. In pig farming, for example, although sow stalls (that prevent the pig from turning
around at all throughout her life) are banned in the UK, the use of farrowing crates is still widely
used (Pig Welfare, 2023). Farrowing crates prevent mothers from doing any and all of their
natural behaviors - depriving them of everything that makes life worth living. I understand that it
protects piglets from being crushed, but with a focus on breeding more robust piglets and
perhaps smaller litters, this could be mitigated (Vandersen and Hötzel, 2021). In systems like
these, it is obvious that profit is the biggest factor for business owners, rather than the welfare of
the animals. Before I start buying meat from these large farms, I would like to see more
legislation protecting animals (no matter their stage in life) from conditions that promote
lameness and depression (Ceballos, 2021).

Learning of the requirements of labels like the Red Tractor, Soil Association, RSPCA
assured, and Red Lion have been life changing in guiding my choices at Aldi when it comes to
buying eggs. I feel a lot better knowing that the eggs labeled as “Free range” at Aldi have more
rigorous standards for good animal welfare when I see one of those labels - before, I was just
hoping! I have not bought cow milk for any baking endeavors, yet, but next time I do, I will feel
much more equipped to make an ethical decision. I think that the meanings of these labels need
to become more well known - the current education on what they all mean is very low. I found
(while talking to friends and family that took my survey) that people generally really care about
animal welfare, but do not know enough on how to show that as a consumer.

I have yet to venture into eating meat from the grocery store if it is labeled well with high
animal welfare (not just minimum standards - I do not want to support farms that use farrowing
crates for their sows), but will consider it in the future. I also mentioned during the first
reflection of this course that I would consider eating halal meat (as it should, hypothetically, be
both raised well and killed humanely). However, after researching, halal meat often is not
stunned before slaughter. In 2018, the Food Standards Agency said that around 20% of halal
meat is from animals that are not stunned prior to bleeding (Fuseini, Teye, and Lever, 2022), and
because being stunned before slaughter prevents the animal from feeling pain during the death, I
certainly would prefer 100% of any meat I ate to have been stunned.

This leads to the welfare standards of fish, which I did not consider at all before the
course. I mainly focused on the environmental impacts of fish farming and trawling, but now see
that regulations that reduce fish suffering are also required. Death by suffocation is still common
practice (Poli, et al., 2005), and stunning methods are not regulated nearly well enough. I find it
interesting that I (and many of my classmates) had less qualms with the current welfare standards
of fish than with farmed mammals and birds. I do believe they must be able to suffer and
experience pain, as evolutionarily, not being able to feel pain would not be useful in survival. So,
I think that more widespread research about fish experiencing suffering would do them good, as
movements such as End the Cage Age tend to play on people’s emotions. Adoption agencies
rehoming previously neglected pets do similar. Perhaps we need to find a way to empathize more
with fish in order to provide them with better welfare standards.

Another aspect I have not considered before this course was the welfare standards of
insects in the food industry. I love honey, and although I knew that it took tens of thousands of
bees a few months to make just a teaspoon of honey and considered the environmental
implications of focusing on honeybees rather than native pollinators, I never considered their
welfare in the farming systems where they make that honey. The hives used as honey farms are
not like their natural hives - they are much hotter, have a specified volume, and are moved to the
beekeeper’s convenience rather than the honeybees’ (Garrido and Nanetti, 2019). Furthermore,
the common practice of smoking them to calm them interferes with their natural behavior to deal
with predators that might disturb their nest. There are currently no standards that regulate farmed
bee welfare, so with increasing evidence that insects do feel pain and can suffer - although in
different ways than humans - perhaps there should be (Mutinelli, 2021). This also relates to the
environmentally viable concept of entomophagy as a sustainable global protein source. Before
we start producing edible insects on a wide scale, talks should at least begin on how we can
protect their welfare during their lives.

Overall, there is a lot to consider when it comes to eating meat and animal products.
Because of the intricate ins and outs of each of these practices, it would be very difficult to apply
a universal care standard, but the five freedoms, five domains, or three aspects is a very strong
place to start. Humans are omnivores, and we have evolved to eat other animals, after all, I just
do believe we should do so in a way that causes the least amount of suffering to the fellow
inhibitors of our world.

Bibliography:

Ceballos, M.C. et al. (2021) ‘Impact of duration of farrowing crate closure on physical
indicators of sow welfare and piglet mortality’, Animals, 11(4), p. 969.
doi:10.3390/ani11040969.

Fuseini, A., Teye, M. and Lever, J. (2022) ‘An update on Halal slaughter: Current
methods and ongoing research on halal meat production techniques and their implications for
Animal Welfare’, Animal Welfare, 31(2), pp. 269–276. doi:10.7120/09627286.31.2.010.

Garrido, C. and Nanetti, A. (2019) ‘Welfare of managed honey bees’, Animal Welfare, pp.
69–104. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-13947-6_4.

Mellor, D. (2016) ‘Updating animal welfare thinking: Moving beyond the “five
freedoms” towards “A life worth living”’, Animals, 6(3), p. 21. doi:10.3390/ani6030021.
 Mutinelli, F. (2021) ‘Euthanasia and welfare of managed Honey Bee Colonies’, Journal
of Apicultural Research, 62(1), pp. 2–10. doi:10.1080/00218839.2021.1895569.

Pig welfare (no date) Compassion in World Farming. Available at:

https://www.ciwf.org.uk/farm-animals/pigs/pig-welfare/ (Accessed: 05 December 2023).

Poli, B.M. et al. (2005) ‘Fish welfare and quality as affected by pre-slaughter and
slaughter management’, Aquaculture International, 13(1–2), pp. 29–49.
doi:10.1007/s10499-004-9035-1.

Vandresen, B. and Hötzel, M.J. (2021) ‘“Mothers should have freedom of

movement”—citizens’ attitudes regarding farrowing housing systems for sows and their piglets’,
Animals, 11(12), p. 3439. doi:10.3390/ani11123439.