The Myth of the Happy Farmed Animal

by Paul Shapiro

VegNews, Sept./Oct. 2004, page 9

Few representatives from the meat, egg, and dairy industries still publicly argue that animal suffering is of no concern. Their new public relations message assures us that agribusiness is of course concerned about animal suffering, and farmed animals today could hardly have it better.

Take, for example, the comments of Trent Loos, spokesperson for agribusiness PR front group Faces of Ag, in a March 2004 press release: "The technologies used by today's farmers provide the most comfortable living conditions that food animals have ever had."

Loos isn't the only spin-doctor. Ken Klippen, spokesperson for trade association United Egg Producers, recently assured television viewers that laying hens "prefer to be in cages."

Even further, Moira Henderson, a battery-cage egg producer, recently stated in a news piece, "The welfare of my hens is top of my priority list and I know they're happy. They 'sing' to me in the sheds."

It's hard to know what to make of happy hens singing in their tiny wire battery cages, but we should rest assured that after multiple undercover investigations at battery egg factory farms, no animal welfare investigator has yet witnessed this phenomenon.

One might expect this kind of deception to be limited to agribusiness. But unfortunately, even the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. has joined in—and is doing so with our tax dollars. This past June, the National Zoo opened its newest exhibit, Kids' Farm. With the help of a $5 million Congressional appropriation, the exhibit targets children aged three to eight with the purpose, according to assistant curator Bob King, of letting kids "identify where some of their food comes from."

So where do our chicken and eggs come from? At Kids' Farm, all of the chickens have outdoor access, branches for perching, as well as nesting boxes. The visitor is led to believe such farming conditions are typical. In fact, 98 percent of chickens in the U.S. egg industry are overcrowded in barren, wire battery cages, where they can't dust bathe, let alone flap their wings, forage, perch, or even walk. And 99 percent of chickens in the U.S. meat industry are confined in barren, warehouse-like sheds. The exhibit is a fairy tale.

Just like slaveholders perpetuated the "myth of the happy slave," factory farmers today promote the "myth of the happy farmed animal." As more of the public becomes outraged over the treatment of farmed animals, agribusiness will scramble to assuage us that farmed animals actually enjoy living in cages, being castrated, de-beaked, or de-horned without painkiller.

As vegetarians, we have an obligation to be well-informed, taking agribusiness to task both for abusing animals and for misleading the public. Since farmed animals can't speak for themselves, it's up to us to let the public know the truth about the routine cruelty they endure. Let's not let them down.

Paul Shapiro is campaigns director of the D.C.-based animal advocacy organization Compassion Over Killing, www.cok.net.