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Factory Farms and Puppy Mills

Tsukasa Buddha

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Tsukasa Buddha
Joined
Sep 10, 2006
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Seeing as I quite like animals, I have been coming across these terms more and more in my readings. In society I see many of my co-workers extolling the virtues of buying free-range/organic animal products or warning not to buy from pet shops. The main counter argument that I encounter is that these cases so defined by the activist in question are actually the outliers and they are trying to trick people into their vegan lifestyles served under their cat masters.

Obviously I've read plenty of biased info, but I'd rather get a landscape of these issues from someone not PETA or an industry spokesgroup. Are there any more objective surveys that give a picture of the incidence of practices. I've heard some say that free-range chickens pretty much come from the same warehouse that has a porch added onto it. I've heard cows are actually treated well because welfare is necessary for milk production. And I know the terms themselves can be woolly, but surely there is objective data like square centimetres of moving space or so many gallons of milk or so many puppies produced.

(I think ethics are a separate topic. I'm looking for a lay of the land. But since the terms start out so ethically coloured...)
 
There's a huge difference between the two issues.

Puppy mills (and breeders, really, if you're just looking for a pet) should be avoided simply because there are thousands of puppies in shelters waiting to be adopted. There's a huge surplus of dogs and cats available, and no reason to intentionally produce more.

As for meat farms... life feeds on life. Once you start getting emotional over livestock, it's impossible to avoid hypocrisy.
 
I don't think they should use the term "puppy mill" because it makes me picture a steel mill worked by adorable puppies in little hardhats, like in Busytown. So cute.
 
I think of a puppy mill the first step of grinding them into flour. ;)

So far as 'food farms' go, do you know that about 2/3 of the food grown in America is exported? We have what, about 3% of the land but grow enough food for 15% of the world's population?

Sort of shows the advantage to Big Ag and capitalism, and how the rest of the world gains from "American Consumerism ".
 
casebro said:
I think of a puppy mill the first step of grinding them into flour. ;)

So far as 'food farms' go, do you know that about 2/3 of the food grown in America is exported? We have what, about 3% of the land but grow enough food for 15% of the world's population?

Sort of shows the advantage to Big Ag and capitalism, and how the rest of the world gains from "American Consumerism ".
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Which isn't an argument that there aren't huge issues with it that could be addressed without hurting exports of food.

Water usage, sanitary conditions, subsidies distorting the market leading to some crops being preferred artificially and not rotated as much as they should be, over-use of fertilizers and pesticides even though that cuts into the farmer's bottom line and the environment, animal welfare, sewage constraints,etc.

To be clear I don't believe that 'buying small and/or organic' is a viable solution to these issues like many who throw around the term 'factory farming' because I know that criticism of current standards and some practices doesn't constitute support for organic/small/whatever new ketch-phrase.
 
There is nothing wrong with a good dog breeder. We just recently got our dog (a shiba inu) from a breeder, he's a retired show champion who the breeder wanted to find a good home for now that his show carrier is over. The shiba inu breeders work very hard to make certain that their dogs are healthy, happy, and well trained. There is a big difference between a reputable breeder and a puppy mill.

It's true that there are a lot of dogs up for adoption at the shelters but frankly I don't want a chiwawa or a pit bull and that seemed to be all we could find at the local shelters. If you adopt from a shelter your choices of dog breeds are limited to whatever is currently popular with irresponsible dog owners. Frankly, I think it is bad to get a dog that would not fit well with your household and lifestyle simply because you feel sorry for it.
 
If you're not a hypocrite, then I'm guessing you have lax moral principles.

Also:
I don't think they should use the term "puppy mill" because it makes me picture a steel mill worked by adorable puppies in little hardhats, like in Busytown. So cute.
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Weak Kitten said:
If you adopt from a shelter your choices of dog breeds are limited to whatever is currently popular with irresponsible dog owners. Frankly, I think it is bad to get a dog that would not fit well with your household and lifestyle simply because you feel sorry for it.
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That's true but you do have more options than the shelter down the road. There are a good number of pet rescues for specific breeds operating now, it's not outside the realm of possibility to find one that's as accessible as a breeder that has the sort of dogs you want. Adopting (or buying) a dog just because you want to take it home isn't a great decision, no, but if you don't really have time for a roadtrip to check out a breed rescue you might not really have time for a dog either. That sounds harsher than I mean it to, just, well you know what I mean probably.
 
Stomatopoda said:
As for meat farms... life feeds on life. Once you start getting emotional over livestock, it's impossible to avoid hypocrisy.
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Ethical vegetarians and vegans are conscientious objectors to the hideous conditions animals endure on factory farms, they adopt a diet that results in fewer animals being bred into those conditions. This position seems to be wholly rational and consistent. Perhaps I'm missing something, can you explain why its "impossible to avoid hypocrisy"?
 
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Dessi said:
Ethical vegetarians and vegans are conscientious objectors to the hideous conditions animals endure on factory farms, they adopt a diet that results in fewer animals being bred into those conditions. This position seems to be wholly rational and consistent. Perhaps I'm missing something, can you explain why its "impossible to avoid hypocrisy"?
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People sometimes make a less than valid corollary from that however in assuming that if one does eat animals, then one doesn't object to animals being bred into bad conditions. This is the excluded middle.

To be clear, I'm not accusing you of that.
 
I don't why I didn't know this still went on, but a couple days ago I was suprised to see a pet store with puppies for sale. Off the shelf puppies in stock. With the modern debate over ethical treatment of animals I would have that that off the shelf puppies had become an anachronism. It really seems to me that more thought and planning ought to go in to purchasing a pet and they should be raised to order if not gotten from a shelter. I don't know why this took me by surprise, but it did. Somehow I'd managed to avoid seeing a pet store for quite a while.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
I don't why I didn't know this still went on, but a couple days ago I was suprised to see a pet store with puppies for sale. Off the shelf puppies in stock. With the modern debate over ethical treatment of animals I would have that that off the shelf puppies had become an anachronism. It really seems to me that more thought and planning ought to go in to purchasing a pet and they should be raised to order if not gotten from a shelter. I don't know why this took me by surprise, but it did. Somehow I'd managed to avoid seeing a pet store for quite a while.
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I know that PetSmart here gets the cats that it shows from a rescue operation, so I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that animals are from puppy mills.
 
Puppies retailed by pet stores are almost always from puppy mills - the reason being that reputable breeders won't sell puppies to pet stores. Reputable breeders want to know that their animals are going to a good home; puppy mills don't care.
 
casebro said:
I think of a puppy mill the first step of grinding them into flour. ;)

So far as 'food farms' go, do you know that about 2/3 of the food grown in America is exported? We have what, about 3% of the land but grow enough food for 15% of the world's population?
Click to expand...

6.5%

Sort of shows the advantage to Big Ag and capitalism, and how the rest of the world gains from "American Consumerism ".
Click to expand...

Not really. The US just has large amounts of farmable soil in a reasonable climatic range.

For example Russia has a lot of land but that lot of that is siberia which isn't very farmable.

Britian has a reasonable climatic range but then has a lot of people living on its land.

So if you want to comment on US farming in a global context you need to look at yeild per equivelent acre (and then make some ajustments for labour costs). Hmm thinking about it japanese rice farms might complicate things a bit.

Of course both US and european farming are so heavy subsidised that they only have a passing relationship with capitalism.
 
AlaskaBushPilot said:
How can a free-range steer be guaranteed to have had a better life than an average feedlot steer?
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Short answer: they can't.

Long answer: In the US, the phrase "free range" is only defined for chickens, not for cows or pigs. It generally means that animals access to fresh air and natural sunlight for at least an hour a day. It can still permit confining 1000s of animals together, injecting them with hormones, caging them up, debeaking, grinding up male chicks as food, slaughtering animals when they're "spent", etc.

Free range does not imply in any way that the hens were fed any differently than on normal commercial farms. The label "free roaming" does not describe feed supplies, which means that free-range hens can be fed the same animal-derived byproducts or GMO crops as in other non-organic farms. This is also the main reason why free-range eggs are cheaper than organic eggs.

Consumers of free-range eggs want eggs from hens that are kept under traditional low-density, free-range conditions. Critics of EU-style free-range regulations point out that commercial free-range egg farming, in general, does not live up to these consumer requirements, since the regulations allow the use of yarding rather than free range. Yarding combines a high-density poultry house with an attached fenced yard, and both its methods and results are closer to high-density confinement than true free range.[5]
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In other words, "Free range" is a marketing phrase, it has no connection to humane treatment nor does it even specify how animals are treated.
 
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