Farm Ranch Animals

American society is demanding changes to the way the agriculture industry cares for farm animals. The public has moved beyond just wanting to protect farm and ranch animals from obvious cruelty and now wants the agricultural community to ensure it is meeting the social, behavioral, psychological and physical needs of farm animals in confinement hog barns, poultry barns and beef feedlots.

What this means is that farm animals with bones and muscles are meant to move and should be provided with the opportunity to exercise in intensive operations. It means social ranch animals need the opportunity to interact with others of their species.

Another concern is traditional practices, such as branding, castration and dehorning in the cattle industry, that cause unintended pain to animals.

The livestock industry is going to have to become proactive in adapting to this new public ethic concerning animal use or it will face legislated changes.

The change in the public's attitude concerning how agriculture uses farm animals has occurred for two reasons. First, the industrialization of agriculture changed the way farm animals are raised. Second, society changed with an increasing focus on upholding the civil rights of minority groups.

The development of industrialized agriculture, with its confinement operations and feedlots, changed the basic contract between farm animals and producers. Prior to industrialization, the relationship between farmers and their animals was a win-win situation.

Animals benefited because the farmer protected them from predators and provided them with supplementary feed and shelter. And the farmer, of course, benefited through marketing the meat from the animals.

Producers should recognize social attitudes have changed about the use of farm animals and respond to the emerging new ethic. The challenge facing agriculture is to reassure people the food they eat is raised in a humane fashion. People want animals to live decent lives. Then they'll eat meat without guilt.