TL;DR Does anyone know of farms that use nitrogen asphyxiation as their euthanasia method of choice?
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I grew up on a hobby farm in Southern Idaho. My Mom likes animals, so we raised everything from hamsters to horses.
Many of the animals we raised for food, such as chickens, pigs, goats, rabbits, ducks, and cows. Although we hired people to butcher the larger animals (pigs, goats, and cows), we butchered the smaller animals ourselves (chickens, rabbits, ducks).
As a result, I'm intimately familiar with the nature of these animals, as well as the processes of turning them into food.
Knowing what I know of their emotional lives, I don't want to cause other animals pain and suffering. Goats and pigs, for example, have personalities and intelligence comparable to dogs. Even the dumber livestock, like chickens, feel pain and fear.
However, I don't feel particularly guilty about eating our animals. They wouldn't have existed at all, were it not for us. And for most of their lives, they lived lives of comparative luxury and safety, compared to what their lives would've been like in the wild.
To my mind, the evil of factory farming isn't the death or consumption of the animals in the end, but the suffering they endure as they mature, and the pain they suffer during the process of butchering.
IMO, if an animal is raised humanely, and doesn't suffer an inhumane death, then I have no problem with eating it.
However, factory farming is still quite inhumane, and the industry standard of butchery still involves quite a bit of pain and suffering.
One of the ways that I think the pain of butchery can be reduced is through the use of nitrogen asphyxiation.
The basic idea is to place the animal in a chamber filled with nitrogen gas. Under such conditions, the animal will feel no discomfort, since the feeling of suffocation arises from the accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2), not the lack of oxygen. There is no CO2 accumulation with nitrogen asphyxiation, so the animal simply passes out peacefully, with no feeling of panic.
However, to my knowledge, nitrogen asphyxiation is rarely used.
Does anyone know of any farms that use nitrogen asphyxiation as their method of euthanasia?
http://www.thepigsite.com/swinenews/31940/humane-euthanising-using-nitrogen-foam/
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I grew up on a hobby farm in Southern Idaho. My Mom likes animals, so we raised everything from hamsters to horses.
Many of the animals we raised for food, such as chickens, pigs, goats, rabbits, ducks, and cows. Although we hired people to butcher the larger animals (pigs, goats, and cows), we butchered the smaller animals ourselves (chickens, rabbits, ducks).
As a result, I'm intimately familiar with the nature of these animals, as well as the processes of turning them into food.
Knowing what I know of their emotional lives, I don't want to cause other animals pain and suffering. Goats and pigs, for example, have personalities and intelligence comparable to dogs. Even the dumber livestock, like chickens, feel pain and fear.
However, I don't feel particularly guilty about eating our animals. They wouldn't have existed at all, were it not for us. And for most of their lives, they lived lives of comparative luxury and safety, compared to what their lives would've been like in the wild.
To my mind, the evil of factory farming isn't the death or consumption of the animals in the end, but the suffering they endure as they mature, and the pain they suffer during the process of butchering.
IMO, if an animal is raised humanely, and doesn't suffer an inhumane death, then I have no problem with eating it.
However, factory farming is still quite inhumane, and the industry standard of butchery still involves quite a bit of pain and suffering.
One of the ways that I think the pain of butchery can be reduced is through the use of nitrogen asphyxiation.
The basic idea is to place the animal in a chamber filled with nitrogen gas. Under such conditions, the animal will feel no discomfort, since the feeling of suffocation arises from the accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2), not the lack of oxygen. There is no CO2 accumulation with nitrogen asphyxiation, so the animal simply passes out peacefully, with no feeling of panic.
However, to my knowledge, nitrogen asphyxiation is rarely used.
Does anyone know of any farms that use nitrogen asphyxiation as their method of euthanasia?
http://www.thepigsite.com/swinenews/31940/humane-euthanising-using-nitrogen-foam/