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nigeltdeA bit disappointed with the Temple Grandin book I've just finished, Making Animals Happy: how to create the best life for pets and other animals, which is much less scientifically rigorous and interesting than I'd hoped. I guess it is written for people who have never heard of behavioural psychology but even the explanations of simple things like negative/positive reinforcement are convoluted and the chapters don't hang very well on the structure she sets up at the start. She's a really cool person but as a "science for laypeople" book and/or as an expose of industrial practices it doesn't quite work and most of the chapters cover stuff I know or can figure out for myself.
But while I wouldn't recommend the book there are definitely a few quotes worth sharing about intensive animal production and the way the problems of genetics and technology start to snowball, leading to counterproductive results and even worse practice.
- Male turkeys have such big breasts now that they can't mate at all and hens have to be artificially inseminated. (p. 220)
- [I]n the 1970s...a designer in Ireland developed a humane, low-cost electric stunner for pigs.... [That was automatic and made out of cheap bicycle parts]... Small companies could afford to buy it, but they never got the chance because one of the big equipment companies that manufactured and sold an expensive stunner bought the patent rights and killed it.... The new design was more humane than the equipment the small plants were using and it probably wouldn't have worked in the larger plants anyway. The company...wasn't going to lose any money if the cheaper design went on the market.
That same company, when I was working on the center-track conveyor system, was working on its own version. After I finished my designs I purposely killed all the patent rights by publishing my drawings in a meat magazine.... After I published my drawings I went to a trade show [and] the sales rep from the big equipment company was so mad he wouldn't talk to me. (p. 204)
- [T]here's not much sandy soil in the Carolinas and the Midwest, where most farms are now located. Pigs' natural rooting behaviour combined with normal rainfall and snowmelt made traditional pig farms into ankle-deep mud-pie messes.... The solution farmers came up with was to move their pigs onto concrete lots enclosed in open-sided or three-walled structures.... [I]t created a new problem, which was the removal of manure and straw.
So to fix that problem the small farmers in Iowa and Illinois started building [expensive] fully enclosed pig barns with automated feeding troughs and slatted floors to let the pigs' manure fall into a gutter or large storage pit underneath the facility.... [F]armers had to raise more pigs to make a profit. [They] started to [wean early and] have litters of pigs year-round instead of raising pigs outside during the summer.... The winters in the Midwest are brutal.... so mama pigs had to be kept inside. This led to the invention of gestation stalls where a sow is kept confined during her entire pregnancy. The sow can lie down and stand up, but she cannot turn around...
Early weaning means you have to build more expensive nurseries and provide expensive feed to take the place of sows' milk, which increases the pressure fro increasing productivity. (pp. 175-176)
- Sow stalls became the new industry standard [in the 1990s during an explosion in the pork industry] when two start-up hog companies hired contractors who specialised in swine facilities to build hundreds of new barns.... The stalls are horrible for the sow but good business for the contractor because he gets to sell five times more welded steel than he does to build pens. When hundreds of new farms opened up after that, there was a huge shortage of skilled stockpeople, and the contractors touted labor savings and ease of management as a selling point for sow stalls. By then there was an improved electronic feeder [that was more humane and would have eliminated the need for sow stalls] on the market, but few people were interested because the early adopters had failed, and of course the contractors were quick to tell their customers that electronic feeders did not work. (pp. 202-203)
But while I wouldn't recommend the book there are definitely a few quotes worth sharing about intensive animal production and the way the problems of genetics and technology start to snowball, leading to counterproductive results and even worse practice.
- Male turkeys have such big breasts now that they can't mate at all and hens have to be artificially inseminated. (p. 220)
- [I]n the 1970s...a designer in Ireland developed a humane, low-cost electric stunner for pigs.... [That was automatic and made out of cheap bicycle parts]... Small companies could afford to buy it, but they never got the chance because one of the big equipment companies that manufactured and sold an expensive stunner bought the patent rights and killed it.... The new design was more humane than the equipment the small plants were using and it probably wouldn't have worked in the larger plants anyway. The company...wasn't going to lose any money if the cheaper design went on the market.
That same company, when I was working on the center-track conveyor system, was working on its own version. After I finished my designs I purposely killed all the patent rights by publishing my drawings in a meat magazine.... After I published my drawings I went to a trade show [and] the sales rep from the big equipment company was so mad he wouldn't talk to me. (p. 204)
- [T]here's not much sandy soil in the Carolinas and the Midwest, where most farms are now located. Pigs' natural rooting behaviour combined with normal rainfall and snowmelt made traditional pig farms into ankle-deep mud-pie messes.... The solution farmers came up with was to move their pigs onto concrete lots enclosed in open-sided or three-walled structures.... [I]t created a new problem, which was the removal of manure and straw.
So to fix that problem the small farmers in Iowa and Illinois started building [expensive] fully enclosed pig barns with automated feeding troughs and slatted floors to let the pigs' manure fall into a gutter or large storage pit underneath the facility.... [F]armers had to raise more pigs to make a profit. [They] started to [wean early and] have litters of pigs year-round instead of raising pigs outside during the summer.... The winters in the Midwest are brutal.... so mama pigs had to be kept inside. This led to the invention of gestation stalls where a sow is kept confined during her entire pregnancy. The sow can lie down and stand up, but she cannot turn around...
Early weaning means you have to build more expensive nurseries and provide expensive feed to take the place of sows' milk, which increases the pressure fro increasing productivity. (pp. 175-176)
- Sow stalls became the new industry standard [in the 1990s during an explosion in the pork industry] when two start-up hog companies hired contractors who specialised in swine facilities to build hundreds of new barns.... The stalls are horrible for the sow but good business for the contractor because he gets to sell five times more welded steel than he does to build pens. When hundreds of new farms opened up after that, there was a huge shortage of skilled stockpeople, and the contractors touted labor savings and ease of management as a selling point for sow stalls. By then there was an improved electronic feeder [that was more humane and would have eliminated the need for sow stalls] on the market, but few people were interested because the early adopters had failed, and of course the contractors were quick to tell their customers that electronic feeders did not work. (pp. 202-203)
