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Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

Putting the issue of legality of such legislation aside, it kinda surprised me that the farm-owners/workers were not more concerned about the kind of cruelty going on in their property. Do these people not find the videos incredibly unsettling? How can they allow these things under their watch?

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I don't think you understand.

Before the filming, the cruelty happened and profits were just fine.

After the filming was shown, profits went down/business was lost.

Clearly the problem they need to fix is to stop filming to help keep profits up and avoid losing business.

Clearer now ?

I have a relative who runs a big company selling meat. He only goes to his office once per week, no need to be there any more often. Almost everything that happens in the company is dealt with by his managers, so only super-critical stuff gets through to him. I can see how a person like that can be unaware that workers in one of his slaughterhouses kick pigs in the face, he's got better things to do than look through security footage all day. And when these things happen they are dealt with by local managers there,not by him personally.

Like there was a case few months back, when one of his drivers was in an accident and killed a few people, and he - as a company owner - wouldn't even know about it if the insurance company hadn't called him directly telling him that they will be paying few million out of his policy, which made him look into it. If that didn't happen, he would not even be aware of that situation.

At least one of the practices mentioned, de-beaking [0], is nowhere near out of the ordinary at factory hatcheries. One of the quoted lobbyists even makes the point that some of the behavior recorded is the norm, not the exception:

  The videos may seem troubling to someone unfamiliar with farming, said
  Kelli Ludlum, the group’s director of Congressional relations, but
  they can be like seeing open-heart surgery for the first time.
  
  “They could be performing a perfect procedure, but you would consider
  it abhorrent that they were cutting a person open,” she said.

While some of the abuses may be unusual, I suspect the truth is that they would prefer no one tape the regular day-to-day goings on at factory farms either.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debeaking

Regarding debeaking, it IS not removal of the whole beak. It is the technique of rounding off the beak.

We've raised chickens before, starting from chicks/eggs. The chicks will peck at anything, including other chicks. We lost 2 chicks that way, because one had a bloodspot, and we don't know about the other one. Having rounded beaks (and the tools to do that) would have saved us 2 animals.

I also saw on Facebook someone moaning about Cannulized cows and the "evil trauma" it must be. Let alone, it is a great way to monitor the herd (cows) along with providing rapid response to bad plants causing problems, like jimpson weed.

If most people had to go through the process of raise animal; slaughter animal; clean carcass; package meat: Most people would be vegetarians. I've done it, and would do it again if I had to.

You're right, I should have used the word "trimming" since "debeaking" is a bit loaded. I didn't know that it was still necessary or recommended for raising chickens in smaller operations, thanks for enlightening me.

I still think that most consumers of eggs (and meat, and milk) who have never seen a battery cage operation (or factory farm, CAFO, slaughterhouse, etc) would be surprised, if not horrified, and I suspect that this is the real motivation behind these laws and lobbying efforts.

I very much do agree: much of the current factory farm techniques are just plain disgusting.

Many of the big egg-ufacturers calculate space per chick in cm^3. They cannot turn or pretty much move in any direction. General treatment is abhorrent. Feed is not a natural ground-peck but some nutrient paste pellets filled with antibiotics. Sanitation is whatever falls through the cage. What doesn't ends up burning the chickens' feet.

But about my story: We bought 15 chickens. 8 of them were chicks, and 7 were eggs about to hatch. Baby chicks, especially in an incubator, are harsh little evil things. They will all peck at whatever is different. Out of 15, we lost 2, which does seem average for farmers. It's also why you use red lights on chicks too: so they can't see blood.

Mike Rowe learns that the humane method of castrating lambs isn't what he expects. Farming is the [second] oldest profession and they do things that might seem weird or cruel, but are based on generations of experience.

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Just because it's based on generations of experience, that does not mean it is not cruel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

Absolutely correct, except for confusing expert knowledge with tradition.

Science has been and can be cruel. But a layman watching a youtube clip about farm practices is hardly the person I trust to make a judgement on preferred practices, anymore than a I trust a layman to comment on engineering or medicine.

An expert in farming has a conflict of interest in determining whether using animals for humans is ethical.

Sure, I'd trust a farmer on the most "effective" way to artificially inseminate a cow, but I don't need to study farming to say the instrument known as the "rape rack" is immoral.

I argue they're standing too close to see the big picture.

Desensitization would be my hypothesis.

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