When I was planning these posts a few days ago I had no clue that the idea of humane vs. inhumane rearing and slaughtering could snowball into what it did.  Quickly, I realized that everything that I was thinking was going to take some time to flesh out and express on paper…err…computer screen.

Humane-It’s a word that’s like the girl in the 6^th grade that was kind of frumpy in May and then completely transformed by the time school resumed in the Fall.  It is becoming very popular. 

Napa Valley Holsteins

Humanely raised, humanely slaughtered.  We see it everywhere, but like sustainable, what does it really mean?  Assuming that we are cool with the idea of raising animals to eat, it makes sense that we provide those animals with the best life we can during their time with us, right? Let’s also assume that we all have a general concept of what humane is or what it is not.  We’ve all seen the Humane Society and PETA videos of workers pushing sickly cattle, barely able to stand on their own, through piles of sludgy manure on their way to the slaughterhouse (yum) or the turkeys getting their heads stomped on by bitter workers in confinement houses (those people have reserved seating in hell).  Let’s all assume that those situations are about as far from responsible husbandry as it gets and focus on the nitty gritty of what we can control or curb. 

More and more frequently, the topics such as worming animals or giving them antibiotics when they’re sick, come up for debate in the organic/humane conversation.  Going for a moment back to our organic conversation, the second an antibiotic or worming medication goes into an animal’s system, the animal can no longer be considered organic, ever*.  How humane is it though to let a cow live with worms or a lamb to suffer with pink eye?  How humane is it to let infection set in to a scrape on your pig’s rump? Worms and infections can kill an animal, slowly and painfully.  In my opinion, its not only inhumane, it’s also economically stupid.  These animals are a farmer’s primary source of income.  To let them die because of an absurd belief that giving a sick animal a shot of antibiotics to help heal it is ultimately worse for the animal, just doesn’t make sense to me.  Do you not take your child to the doctor when he/she is sick?  Do you not worm your dogs?  If you’re into the holistic medicine thing, then power to you (for with you, I have no argument), but a majority of the people that are screaming about the antibiotics used in the animals they eat and insist on them being certified organic, aren’t looking at life from the realistic perspective on a small farm.  Don’t misunderstand my argument.  I’m not trying to justify what confinement farms do either, which is to feed grain, laced with antibiotics in a “pre-emptive strike” sort of way; all to ultimately keep disease from rearing its ugly head.  In that situation the use of antibiotics is the least of the problems—this would be better discussed in another post as well.  In a properly managed environment, the need to use antibiotics and worming medication diminishes significantly, almost to a point of non-existence.  That should ultimately be our goal when we responsibly take care of our livestock.

Drugs, Drugs, Drugs

Another absurd idea on which the typical, self-proclaimed “animal lovah” finds a soapbox is the use of farrowing boxes for birthing pigs, Berkshires in particular.  Some pig breeds make better mothers than others. It is a simple fact.  The closer the breed is to its wild ancestry, the better mothers they typically make.  Berkshire pigs are a pretty hot commodity right now in the higher-end restaurant market.  They’re a heritage breed dating back to early Americana.  In reality though, they make TERRIBLE mothers in a pastured situation.  They’re lazy to begin with and when it comes time to farrow they’ll often begin building a nest and just stop before it’s complete.  Then they’ll have the babies.  Then they’ll roll over on, or step on the babies, often killing them.  In other cases, they’re known to birth them in terrible weather, not protected from the elements.  The results are either piglets that have drowned or died of exposure.  The most extreme cases are when a sow will eat a piglet.  That’s right…eat one.  The farmer’s solution to this problem is to use a farrowing box, a device that keeps the sow separated from her piglets except while nursing (keep in mind that a sow only nurses for 4-6 weeks and ideally is only in the farrowing box while the piglets are feeding).  This way she can’t accidentally (or purposefully) kill her piglets. Farmer’s catch a lot of grief because of the “humanity” or “inhumanity” associated with farrowing boxes.  It’s all about perspective though.

The bottom line is that any human that is not some sort of psychopath wants animals to be treated well.  The only reason a majority of our livestock live in their current conditions is because the masses are ignorant about the situation.  So what is the right answer?  How “wild” should our livestock be?  I like the idea of letting a chicken express its “chicken-ness” or a pig realize its natural tendencies to want to forage and root, but where does the line get drawn? Keeping pigs fenced in with portable electric fencing and moving them to new pasture every couple of weeks sounds pretty ideal when looking at their living conditions in a confinement house with a concrete floor and barely enough room to turn around, but why not give the pigs the whole unadulterated run of the ranch?  From that perspective, a small fenced-in paddock could begin to resemble the likes of the concrete-floored confinement house.  Following me?

Personally, I think we have to look at it from another point of view.  Through thousands of years of micro-evolution livestock have been domesticated and lost their inherent skills associated with survival and thereby rely on their relationship with humans to exist (one could make the argument that the animals over time have manipulated us for the furthering of their existence making us as dependent on them as they are on us for ultimate survival, but that’s another conversation, whoah). 

In the end, we have to look at this domestication dilemma as reasonable people and make the judgment call as to what might be considered humane enough.  At first, the concept of humane enough didn’t really sit well with me because it makes it sound like we can or should be able to do more.  Let me explain.

But throughout their entire life they only live on an acre or two of pasture?  One might ask how can that be enjoyable?  I can’t rightly answer that, but I CAN say with some confidence that if we let them do their own thing, unfettered in the pasture, they have a good chance of running into predators or dying of other diseases; not exactly an exciting alternative.

Polyface Pigs.

Photo By Steven David Johnson. Used by permission.

After seeing domestic pigs rooting around in a pack, grunting, rolling around in the dirt, nosing through fresh straw—after seeing two or three pigs resting in the shade of an oak tree in mid afternoon—after hearing the serene clanking of the full feeder as a group of pigs greedily gobbles up the supplement [organic] feed to their forage, it dawns on me that they look pretty dang content. That idea to me is humane enough.  Everyone should have different opinions though.  It is healthy.  By doing enough homework to form an opinion, the industry self-regulates through a consumer driven system of checks and balances.  People end up voting with their forks.  What could be better?