I do not rely on PETA to tell my how bright chickens are. Most of the studies on chickens have been done at universities. The articles I've posted here about the problem solving abilities of chickens are mostly from the European press. In Europe they are going through a process of rewriting European Union law as it pertains to animal husbandry, to take into consideration the comfort and happiness and stress levels of farm animals. The kind of factory farming that we do in America is becoming illegal there. That is why the Dutch dairy farmers are moving to America, because the abuse of cows is still legal here. Were you aware of this trend?
You can tell me all day and all night that you don't think chickens are very smart, but that just makes me think you haven't read the scientific literature about them, and that you don't leave yourself open to considering chickens in anything but the preconceived way you always have. That is a pretty normal way to approach life, particularly for a farmer, since if you suddenly realized chickens were very intelligent and had all the basic feelings we do, and can suffer, it might make it harder to raise them in an insensitive way. But it doesn't convince me that I should share your opinion of chickens.
Also, a major part of the animal rights movement is not based just on how intelligent animals are, but on whether they have feelings and can experience pain. We know from the study done by the poultry association that I posted recently that as genetically altered factory farm chickens grow bigger and bigger, their little legs cannot support them and they start feeling more and more pain as their size increases. The study shows that the lighter, younger chickens do not feel as much pain, because when given the option, they choose feed with less painkillers in it. As the chickens get bigger, they choose the feed with more painkillers. Did you see that study? I could post it again if you didn't.
So regardless of what you think about chickens, it is obvious that the way we raise them causes them pain, and I don't think animals should suffer, even if we are gong to eat them eventually. So based on that, how intelligent they are isn't even particularly relevant. The fact that they suffer is enough.
Here's an article about the Dutch dairy farmers moving to America:
Factory Farms Cause Big "Stink"
Big farms, big problems?
Manure from large-scale dairies creates environmental issues
Sunday, August 01, 2004
Fran Henry
Plain Dealer Reporter
Mother Nature works magic with manure, and most of Ohio's nearly 4,000 dairy
farms depend on it. Once a cow drops her waste on a pasture, the sun, rain,
earthworms and insects collaborate to churn the nutrients back into the
soil.
But the cows in mega-dairies farms with many hundreds of cows never set foot
on grass, never feel the sun or rain on their backs. They never leave the
confines of their concrete-floored barns until their milk production falters
and they are slaughtered for the nation's ground-beef industry.
Two or three times a day, when mega-dairy herds are moved from barns to
high-tech milking parlors, their stalls are hosed down.
The liquefied manure is piped outdoors into open pits, or lagoons, for
storage. Theoretically, the liquefied manure is pumped into trucks twice a
year and taken to fields to be spread for fertilizer.
While Mother Nature easily manages a cow pie here, a cow pie there, enormous
amounts of liquefied manure are another story. The 22,600 cows housed by
northwest Ohio's 22 new dairies produce about 2.8 million pounds of manure a
day.
That's more than a billion pounds on an average 127 pounds of manure per cow
per day. And more cows are on the way, as new farms are built and existing
farms plan major herd expansions. At least four new farms are under
development in northwest Ohio.
Manure spread on fields doesn't necessarily stay put, and manure lagoons
aren't necessarily secure. Soupy manure sometimes overflows from storage
lagoons. And once spread on fields, it sometimes seeps into field drainage
tiles or is moved by rain or melting snow until it reaches waterways that
inexorably lead to the lakes and rivers that serve as water sources for
cities and towns. Fish kills along the way occasionally serve to document
the manure's movement through the water system.
All of northern Ohio's waterways feed into Lake Erie.
Ohio State University zoologist David Culver poses the very real possibility
that manure from northwest Ohio farms is contributing to Lake Erie's
6,300-square-mile "dead zone," an oxygen-depleted area where fish cannot
live. Manure fertilizes algae, which sink to the lake's bottom when they
die. As the algae decompose, they deplete the oxygen in the water, cutting
off the oxygen supply to fish and other living creatures.
In addition, all animal waste contains viruses, parasites and bacteria,
including E. coli, which can live in the soil for six to 10 months. E. coli,
which becomes waterborne when rain falls or when snow melts, can cause
illness when ingested.
Manure runoff can also affect the taste of drinking water tainted by
decomposing algae. Bowling Green, for example, spent $3 million about four
years ago to install a filtration system to improve the flavor of the city's
water, which comes from the Maumee River. New filters cost about $70,000 a
year.
While other factors, including industrial runoff, are implicated in Lake
Erie's dead zone, "the influx of new dairies ain't helping," Culver said.
"But it's not just a rural problem. Everyone eats food and, therefore,
everyone plays a part in American agriculture."
Manure runoff
pollutes waterways
Many of northwest Ohio's mega-dairies play roles in the potential threat to
the water supply. An unannounced inspection of 10 dairies in March found
extensive problems at nearly all of them, said Arnie Lieder, enforcement
officer for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5, which
includes Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin. No
violation notices have been issued to the problem farms.
Lieder cites a "slew of maintenance problems" with the manure storage pits
as well as "failure to contain contaminated runoff and unauthorized
discharges, particularly from feed storage as well as manure storage."
He said most of the dairies began operation with inadequate manure storage
capacity, forcing them to avoid overflow by spreading manure on fields when
the ground was frozen or snow- covered. Under these conditions, the Ohio
Department of Agriculture discourages, but does not ban, manure spreading.
Many other states prohibit winter manure applications.
The Ohio EPA documented six incidents related to field applications of dairy
cow manure during the winter of 2003-04, as well as 13 other incidents
related to chicken and hog manure.
The Ohio legislature is in no hurry to wade into the matter.
State Rep. John White, a Kettering Republican, proposed a bill in May 2003
requiring the Ohio EPA to conduct a study to "assess the impacts, if any" of
mega-farms and the land application of manure, but the bill died in
committee, he said.
"There was no appetite for it." But he believes attitudes will change. "This
is much more than a left-wing environmental issue, and I'm speaking as a
conservative Republican," he said.
Moratorium on
more big farms
At least 33 mega-dairies operate statewide, 27 of which were built in the
past three or four years, mostly in northwest Ohio.
The vast majority of Ohio's dairies let their cows graze on pasture, which
requires about 1½ acres per cow. Most of the state's mega-dairies have been
built on 40- to 80-acre properties.
Ohio's agricultural industry is happy with the new dairies.
Bob Peterson, president of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, said lagoon
storage is good for Ohio's environment. In 1975, Ohio's 400,000 dairy cows
were largely pastured, he said, and "when they did their business, they did
it in the stream and on the hillside. Now we look at 2002, we have far fewer
cows [260,000 ] and the manure is managed according to plans."
Tim Demland, executive director of Ohio Dairy Producers, said the problems
are being solved. "A lot of the people involved have never done this
before."
The benefits of mega-farms override the problems, he said, because the new
large-scale dairies allow Ohio dairy factories to make more products with
local milk, instead of buying some milk from out of state.
However, numerous organiza tions, including the American Public Health
Association, the Michigan State Medical Society, the Sierra Club and the
National Catholic Rural Life Conference, have called for moratoriums on
large-scale animal farming while the various problems are thoroughly
explored and solved.
Among the few successes for such advocates is a 1997 moratorium enacted in
North Carolina under the leadership of Republican state Rep. Cindy Watson.
She became concerned in June 1995 when 25 million gallons of liquefied hog
manure overflowed a la goon in North Carolina and ended up in the New River.
The moratorium remains in force.
"We want an alternative to the lagoon system," she said in a phone
interview. "Hogs and cows could go anywhere if we treated the sewage."
The problem is widespread nationwide, said Watson, who recently won the John
F. Kennedy Library Foundation "Profiles in Courage" award for her leadership
on the moratorium.
Many dozens of citizens groups nationwide are fighting mega-farm
development, and at least 10 Ohio citizens groups have formed in the past
few years to actively oppose mega-dairy construction and expansion. The Ohio
groups charge that the state agriculture department allows the farms to
operate with inadequate regulation. Lawsuits have been filed against the
department by the Citizens of Putnam County for Clean Air and Water Inc. and
Citizens Against Mega Dairies, a coalition of residents of Greene, Madison,
Fayette and Clark counties.
Ohio mega-farm regulation is the exclusive province of the agriculture
department, by order of House Bill 152, passed last July. Previously, the
Ohio EPA regulated mega-farms on a case-by- case basis without rules. Dairy
farms under 700 cows, however, do not fall under the department's oversight.
"Our job is to properly regulate these farms, and show what a meticulous
program can do," said department spokeswoman Deborah Abbott.
Dutch farmers
run new dairies
Most of Ohio's new mega-dairies are operated by Dutch farmers who managed 50
to 100 cows in their native Netherlands.
U.S. dairy farming is financially appealing to the Dutch, said Jose Van
Wezel, who co- owns Wezbra Dairy in Putnam County with her husband, Jeroen.
Land in the Netherlands is far more expensive and in short supply, and Dutch
farmers must pay for the rights to dispose of manure. Also, milk production
is controlled by a quota system.
"In the Netherlands, I milked 50 cows all by myself," Jeroen Van Wezel said.
"Now I'm managing people instead of cows."
The Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development Corp. is driving northwest Ohio's dairy
boom. The company, based in Wauseon, just west of Bowling Green builds basic
dairy farms including barns, manure ponds and feed storage areas that sell
for $3.5 million to $5 million each. The company also helps buyers with
financing, cow purchases, worker recruitment and investor visas, which allow
them to enter the country.
Since 1998, the company has built 41 dairies: 23 in Ohio, 10 in Indiana and
eight in southern Michigan. Six more are under development in Ohio,
including a 4,500-cow farm in Hardin County, and two more in Indiana, said
Vreba-Hoff partner Cecilia Conway.
The Indiana and Michigan dairies, which are also in the Lake Erie Drainage
Basin, have also had manure problems.
In southern Michigan, a citizens group has documented illegal manure
discharges at all 10 dairies built by Vreba-Hoff. In the last four years,
the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality confirmed more than 100
violations and discharges, including fish kills, and filed lawsuits against
two of the dairies. Both have been asked to install sewage treatment plants,
a plan that Vrega-Hoff rejects.
Two dairies in eastern Indiana have been cited for manure spills and two
were cited for building inadequate manure facilities.
"Yes, it's bad when we contaminate rivers," the dairy producers' Demland
said, "but there are many things that pose more risk. Is it a deathly
threat? I don't think so."
Northwest Ohio
soils are unsuitable
Northwest Ohio is particularly inappropriate for mega-dairies, said Julie
Weatherington-Rice, a certified soil scientist and geologist, because the
soil type, "fractured glacial till," is unsuitable for lagoon storage
systems and field applications of manure.
She cites a large body of research published in a special June 2000 issue of
the Ohio Journal of Science, which she co-edited and widely distributed to
legislators.
For years, Ohio's fine-grained glacial soil was considered an excellent
repository for solid and industrial waste, she said. Although the assumption
was borne out by laboratory tests on small samples, the reality is that deep
random cracks in the soil provide an easy path for pollutants, she said.
Andy Ety, an engineer with the Ohio Department of Agriculture's Livestock
Environmental Permitting Program, discounts the research. "We haven't run
across these fractures causing any contamination of aquifers."
The department is taking an active role in enforcement efforts, spokeswoman
Abbott said. The agency issued two notices of violation this year among the
139 mega-farms it regulates including chicken, swine, beef and dairy cattle
farms and has made routine inspections of 230 farms since last August.
Routine inspections were not done before 2002, when mega-farm regulation was
transferred from the Ohio EPA to the agriculture department, Abbott said.
Joe Logan, president of the Ohio Farmers Union, calls department oversight
"an ozone hole that falls short of rigorous."
Mega-farmers aren't required to own enough land to spread their herds'
manure, and they aren't held responsible for problems associated with field
application of manure which they give away to grain farmers nor are they
required to include information in their manure management plans about who
gets the manure. It is assumed that liquefied manure will be used to
seasonally fertilize local fields. There is evidence, however, that manure
has been occasionally over-applied, leading to runoff.
The agriculture department monitors manure applications only if the dairy
does the job itself or if the dairy gives manure to another livestock
manager who applies more than 4,500 dry tons of manure a year, Abbott said.
Otherwise, farmers who accept manure are on their honor to follow department
guidelines and to report spills immediately. "We intend to catch problems
before they become problems," Abbott said.
The real crux of the problem, said Helen Reddout, a Yakima, Wash., activist,
is that state agencies and the U.S. EPA fail miserably at enforcement. Her
group won the legal right to monitor 10 dairies with pollution histories.
"We did what an agency should have been doing all along," Reddout said.
Others say mega-farms can safely operate only if manure is processed, like
human waste, in a sewage treatment plant.
Meanwhile, many dairy farmers continue to collaborate with Mother Nature in
manure disposal, by moving their cows from field to field. It's a job made
easier with improved electric fencing technology, OSU dairy science
professor David Zartman said.
A farmer whose cows graze can steer the herd to new fields simply by moving
a few strands of electrically charged fence wire. The herd learns to file
into the milking parlor a few times a day, after which it is sent into a
fresh field, as necessary. A dairy farm needs about 1½ acres per cow for
proper grazing.
"The cows are healthier, getting more exercise and standing on a pasture
instead of cold, wet cement," Zartman said.
Quality of life improves for the farmers, too. "People who like cows love
this process," he said. "Plus you're doing what's good for the environment."
It also reduces costs because the cows go to the food instead of the food
being delivered, said Tom Noyes, a Wayne County extension dairy agent and
co-owner of a rotational grazing dairy, Contendo Acres Grazeland, a 100-cow
operation.
He stood amid a field of cows, unabashedly proud. "These Jerseys are
something else," Noyes said. "They're the friendliest you'll meet." He
pointed out No. 220, Davita. "She's the best of the herd. She produced
24,000 pounds of milk last year, compared to the other cows' average 18,000
pounds."
As he strolled to a wire fence separating fields, the cows scampered after
him, thinking, he said, that he was going to let them into a new field.
Noyes walked carefully, avoiding the occasional cow pie.
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