ASK THE ANIMALS AND THEY WILL TELL YOU, PART FOUR:

FARM ANIMALS AND SENTIENCE

When a man’s love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice.

                                                                                     ~ Matthew Scully

            We have seen in Parts One, Two, and Three of this series that animals feel, are aware of, and suffer from physical pain, that they can suffer emotionally, from fear, sadness, and depression, and that they are more intelligent than previously believed, more engaged in their surroundings, and capable of suffering from boredom, as well.  Conversely, animals are also capable of experiencing the richness of life, enjoying their surroundings, forming meaningful relationships with others of their own and other species, and enjoying the task of learning new things.  God has made the animals, like humans, for abundance and joy. 

            This Part Four will look specifically at how farm animals experience the world.  I want to look at these creatures in particular because they suffer in far and away the greatest numbers, they suffer extreme cruelties at human hands, and nearly all of us participate in these cruelties through our purchasing decisions.  But because our diets and purchasing habits are so deeply engrained as habits and traditions in our lives, they are the animals we are most likely to “forget” or to fail to recognize as individuals (not herds, or flocks, or food), or to turn away from when we are asked to consider how we impact their lives.  This post looks at farm animal sentience. It touches only very briefly on how we treat them.  That will be considered in more detail in a later post. 

One final introductory note: farm animals suffer not only in the slaughter process (which I do not address here), they suffer in their daily lives.   This includes dairy cows and egg-laying hens.  Like many people, when I first felt called to give up meat, I thought dairy was permissible because the animals are not killed for milk or eggs.  When I came to understand that some of the worst cruelties in the factory farming system are imposed on egg laying hens and dairy cows, I gradually felt moved to veganism.[1]  For this reason, this post addresses dairy cows in some detail. 
       There is no need for humans to eat meat or dairy, but if we chose to do so, surely, as Christians especially, we must look carefully at this particular exercise of power and consider the source of that meat and dairy, and the amount of meat and dairy we eat, to ensure we are not supporting needless and extreme cruelty.  We also must actively work to support changes in legislation and common practices to protect these defenseless animals.

Amy Hatkoff provides a detailed discussion of cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals raised for food in The Inner World of Farm Animals: Their Amazing Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Capacities.[2]  She recounts their surprising intellectual capabilities, social bonds, decision-making, and other aspects of their lives.  She explains, for example, that cows have excellent memories; they can remember up to 50 bovine faces for several years and they can remember and distinguish human faces.  They select leaders of the herd not by dominance, but by confidence and intelligence: the leader will be the cow that knows the best places to eat and find good water.  They remember who treats them well and who treats them badly, and respond accordingly.[3]

 

They also form strong social attachments and, like other animals, mothers and their young are very strongly bonded.  Nevertheless, in the dairy industry, calves are taken from their mothers almost immediately after birth, so they won’t drink any of the milk.  In a story recorded by Matthew Scully, Dr. Temple Grandin describes the scene when cattle are separated:

When cows are weaned, both the cows and the calves bellow for about twenty-four hours.  Some calves bellow until they are hoarse.  Cattle will also bellow for departed penmates. . . . I have seen Holstein steers bellowing to penmates that were departing in a truck.  The cattle that were left behind watched as their fat penmates walked up the ramp to get on the truck that would take them to Burgerland.  The two steers stared at the truck as it turned out of the parking lot.  One stretched out his neck and bellowed at the truck, and his penmate on the truck bellowed back.[4]  

Hatkoff tells the story of Maya, a rescued dairy cow at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY, who “holds a grudge” against Gene Bauer, the organization’s co-founder.  Maya never had the chance to raise her own calves, and at the sanctuary she “welcomes and nurtures all the new calves who arrive at the sanctuary.”  Bauer escorted one group of calves away from Maya so they could go to an adoptive home.  “Maya was inconsolable, rolling on her back and wailing.  To this day, almost fifteen years later, she has not forgiven Gene and will not allow him to come anywhere near her.  If he tries to approach her, Maya will charge him.”[5]

A few years ago, veterinarian Holly Cheever told the story of a cow she cared for in her early years as a vet.  The farmer called her because he could not understand why his cow, who had just given birth, was not giving any milk.  Her calf had been taken away from her as usual.  Cheever could find no explanation, but some time later the farmer called to say that he had followed the cow to her pasture one day and discovered a second calf hidden at the edge of the pasture.[6]  Cheever explains: 

she had delivered twins, and in a bovine’s “Sophie’s Choice,” she had brought one to the farmer and kept one hidden in the woods at the edge of her pasture, so that every day and every night, she stayed with her baby — the first she had been able to nurture FINALLY—and her calf nursed her dry with gusto. Though I pleaded for the farmer to keep her and her bull calf together, she lost this baby, too—off to the hell of the veal crate.[7]

Moving from cows to pigs, Hatkoff describes their remarkable intelligence.  

  Like dogs, they are able to learn tricks and follow commands, learn their own names, learn the names of objects and commands (“push the dumbbell on the mat”) and remember the objects’ names up to three years.[8]  They are also very fast learners and have been taught to play video games, using their snouts to operate joysticks, which requires an understanding that what they do here causes an effect over there.  They even could remember how to do this a year later with slightly different equipment.  Like other animals, Hatkoff explains, they also are very social and form important social bonds.[9]  Pet pigs, like dogs, have even been known to save their owners’ lives.[10] Yet, in factory farms these animals are kept row upon row in giant warehouses in crates so small they can barely move and without any social or intellectual stimulation. 

Chickens are also very intelligent and they begin to know their mothers’ vocalizations even before they hatch.  “As soon as they hatch, chickens are able to remember that something exists even if they are unable to see it.  This is referred to as object permanence and something that human infants are unable to do until they are five to eight months old.”[11]  This is particularly significant since this is one type of skill associated with consciousness or higher cognition.[12]  Like other farm animals, chickens remember specific humans who has treated them well or badly. They also have a sense of the future, foregoing immediate rewards for the possibility of a greater reward later.  Chicks learn as they grow by watching other chickens, particularly their mothers, meaning many behaviors are driven more by education than instinct.  They can even learn by watching videos![13]

 They are also very social and form strong friendships.  Hatkoff tells the story of two rescued young chicks with a strong attachment.  One of them became sick and died.  The other “was devasted.”  He watched the burial of the other chick and “for the next several weeks, would return to stand silently at the place from which he had last seen her. . . he became angry and would rage around the yard every day  At night, he would stand in the coop alone, drooping with sadness.”[14] 

In factory farms, chickens not only endure intense overcrowding, egg laying hens are kept in battery cages.  Male chicks, who are not useful for egg laying, are commonly tossed into a grinder while alive, conscious, and without anesthesia.  
The Farm Sanctuary website has many stories of the individual animals in their care, their recovery from abuse, and how they thrive and interact with others of their own and other species - including humans. I recommend a visit to that site to learn more about these wonderful creatures - or even a visit to one of the three sanctuaries (or a sanctuary near your home), to meet them in person.  

As I hope this series has shown, animals, including the animals we eat, are each unique individuals, with their own preferences and perspectives on the world.  Species from the mighty elephant to the humble grasshopper have been shown to feel pain, and in varying degrees, to plan, to problem solve, to have best friends, and to be engaged in their surroundings.  They have full lives wholly apart from any interaction with humans and they suffer in ways that are just as real as human suffering.  Mark Bekoff writes:

Sentience is the central reason to better care for animals.  Questions regarding sentience are important and extremely challenging, but we also need to distinguish between feeling and knowing.  Well-being centers on what animals feel, not what they know. Does it really matter if monkeys in a zoo, rats in a lab, or cows on a farm ever understand what is going on around them, or what is being done to them by humans, if they can feel pain and experience suffering?  Animals in these situations depend on us completely, and their behavior tells us when they are healthy and happy or in pain and sad.  Animals can’t call 911 in an emergency; they depend on our goodwill and mercy.[15]

That last sentence - they depend on our goodwill and mercy - must tug on our conscience as Christians.  We, too, are dependent on the goodwill and mercy of Another more powerful than we.  As Jonathan Balcombe has observed, “The problem in our relationship with animals is that our treatment of them hasn’t evolved to keep up with our knowledge.”[16]  Modern science is telling us things our forefathers didn’t know about animals.  They are not like machines.  Their behavior is not purely a reaction to external stimuli, and even to the extent it is, that does not make their pain or fear less real.  They are aware of what happens to them, they are aware of their surroundings, and they are capable of happiness and sorrow.  If we are to exercise dominion in the image of a good and merciful God, we must be attuned to these needs. 

Both science and scripture tell us that animals suffer and that their suffering matters.  We cannot continue to kid ourselves that it somehow doesn’t matter if animals are caged, immobilized, isolated, controlled with electric prods, beaten, chained, abandoned, poisoned, trapped, worked or bred to exhaustion, left to starve, experimented on, or mutilated without anesthesia.  All of these things, to name only a few of the ways we “manage” animals for some perceived human benefit, cause genuine suffering. 

If we will look at these practices through the teachings of scripture, we cannot fail to ask, where is the justification for this suffering? How have we come to this? How will we explain it to the One who watches over us all?
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Photo credits: 
Pig in a bucket: By Ben Salter (Flickr: Pig in a bucket) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 
Chicks:  By HerbertT (Eigenproduktion) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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[1] In the interests of transparency I feel compelled to explain that I do sometime eat dairy if I am a guest in someone’s home and they are able to manage vegetarianism but veganism is a bridge too far, or in some restaurants if others want to eat in a place where a vegan meal is not to be had (with a little creativity, this is rare). 

[2] Hatkoff, Amy. The Inner World of Farm Animals. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2009.

[3] Hatkoff, pp. 78-82.

[4] Scully, Matthew. Dominion: The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and The Call to Mercy. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2002, p. 245.

[5] Hatkoff, p. 83.

[6] Cheever explains that “this was back in the days when cattle were permitted a modicum of pleasure and natural behaviors in their lives.” 

[7] Reprinted from Action for Animals by Global Animals at http://www.globalanimal.org/2012/04/13/cow-proves-animals-love-think-and-act/71867/#sthash.0K7QMqGP.dpbs (accessed January 13, 2013).

[8] Hatkoff, p. 94.

[9] Hatkoff, pp. 97-103.

[10] For example, see the story of LuLu, who lay in front of on-coming traffic to get help for her person, who had had a heart attack, http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19981010pig2.asp; and Iggy, who saved her family from a house fire, http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19981010pig2.asp.

[11] Hatkoff, p. 22.

[12] Hatkoff, p. 22.

[13] Hatkoff, pp. 22-30.

[14] Hatkoff, p. 31.

[15] Bekoff, Marc. The Emotional Lives of Animals. Novato: New World Library, 2007, p. 134 (emphasis original).

[16] Balcombe, Jonathan. Second Nature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 14.