AliceAlcibiades

Small-scale meat farmer here.

First, thanks so much for your work. Working with pigs and seeing them happy and healthy on my farm makes it almost impossible for me to watch footage from factory farms. I don't think I'd be able to even tour a factory farming facility without breaking down.

I do have some questions/critiques, however. We try to do as little intervention with the animals as possible -- no tail docking, no hormones/antibiotics, no ear tags, etc. The one thing we absolutely have to do is castrate male piglets. If you don't, there is a major risk that the meat will end up tasting "tainted," as if it's gone bad (not to mention the danger to farmers and female pigs if there are a number of sexually mature males in the herd). I don't know how they castrated at the farm you visited. Here, it's a quick process that takes about 30 seconds per pig. We do not use anesthesia -- to try to dose an animal so small and young would result in very high mortality rate. The piglet screams as it's happening, of course, and I know it hurts, but as soon as they are done and sprayed with antiseptic they go immediately back to normal life...we've never had one get infected, we've never had any pigs act hurt post-op. They literally go back immediately to playing with their litter-mates and running about.

I'm just wondering, since anti-castration is a thing I hear about A LOT from non-farmer animal rights activists, what would the alternative be? It is one of my least-favorite farm chores, but we have thought about it carefully and determined that to handle it the way we are handing it is the most ethical and responsible thing to do at this point in time. I understand that the footage of castration is dramatic and that is likely why it gets used...but why the focus on a procedure that even ethical animal welfare approved small farms undertake?

Thanks for your reply! It's so heartening to see a farm animal activist who can see things in shades of gray and not just in black and white. It really helps the discussion and makes me feel hopeful that maybe humans who care about animal welfare (farmers and consumers and vegetarian activists) can work together and make life better for livestock.