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Pain-Free Animals Could Take Suffering Out of Farming
Philosopher Adam Shriver suggested that genetically engineering cows to feel no pain could be an acceptable alternative to eliminating factory farming in a paper published in Neuroscience. Work by neuroscientist Zhou-Feng Chen at Washington University may turn Shriver's suggestion a reality. Chen has been working on identifying the genes that control "affective" pain, the unpleasantness part of a painful sensation. He has managed to isolate a gene called P311, and has found that mice who do not have P311 don't have negative associations with pain, although they do react negatively to heat and pressure. This could end much of the concern about cruel farming practices, but unfortunately still leaves my design for the fiery hamburger punch in the unethical column.
Actually a worse idea than it sounds. There are, extremely rarely, children born insensitive to pain. Their survival rates are not good.
Now, particularly for adults, the ability to sense pain as a mere signal, rather than as, well, pain, would be quite nice.
I think you are confusing beef and veal. Normal beef cows are not confined to a tiny pen.
People unfamiliar with farming underestimate the degree to which the comfort of animals is taken into account. Stressed steers are less healthy. Dairy cows produce significantly less milk when stressed or uncomfortable. Some dairies play music all day because they've found it has a calming effect and increases production.
Like anything, it's all about money. But comfortable animals help the bottom line.
Sweet informative mod.
Having worked on a dairy farm for years, and seeing that I have 8 hogs in my back yard, I'm going to call bullshit on this one. Dairy cattle are typically allowed to freely roam for most of the day. Their day goes like this:
Wake up in a large barn, with 400 or so other cows. Mosey out into a holding pen and stand there until let into the milk barn. Stand there and get milked. Blow snot on the person milking you. Crap all over the place, try to splatter on the person milking you. Walk out into a field. Stand around and chew on grass all day. Come back to the holding pen because your udder is full and uncomfortable. Stand there until let into the milk barn. Stand there and get milked. Blow snot on the person milking you. Crap all over the place, try to splatter on the person milking you. Walk out into a field. Chew on some grass. Go back to the barn and go to sleep.
Hog pens are messy, but that's not because they're mistreated - pigs can't effectively sweat, so they cover themselves with wet mud to help dissipate heat. I promise, they *prefer* it that way. The pens are usually about 10x10' per pig.
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