Intensive Animal Farming

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Summary 2 Intensive animal farming has been the center of many questions from the general public, politicians and scientists. One of the main questions that arise is how animals are managed and handled during their life-cycle in small cages that barely fit them. Humans would not be able to suffer the many atrocities that these poor animals are having during their life cycle in a cage – tail docking for pigs and beak trimming for chickens are very painful and sometimes animals do not receive medicine to help and calm them. But many scientists argue that the definition of “well-being” is difficult to define because it depends on the animal cognition, motivation, perception and emotional states. There are solutions to better “well-being” of animals such as finding an alternative system to intensive animal farming; genetic changes the behavioral or physiological nature of the animal and therapeutic help such as tail docking or beak trimming. In this scholarly research about animal well-being in intensive production systems, Swanson (1995) argues that even with better animal management, handling and care, public acceptance will be uncertain. With the help of mechanization and new technologies, farmers have increased their production efficiency to meet the demand. He states that intensive animal farming is the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, in which the farm can be compared to a factory. Swanson notes that intensive animal farming first started with the poultry industry and now, hog farming is following the trend. Swanson continues by saying that for centuries, animal have adapted to new environments however because of confinement the animals have issues developing themselves correctly. Swanson says that critics of factory farming argue that these practices are the cause of mass “suffering” of farm animals. But many
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