Hello, my name is Dr. Dorothy McKeegan and I'm a lecturer in animal welfare and

ethics at the University of Glasgow.

I'm going to talk to you today about the ethics of meeting animals' welfare needs.

Animal welfare is a term that has arisen in our society

to express our moral concern about the quality of life experienced by animals,

particularly captive animals.

For most of us, the basis of our moral concern for

animals is that we believe many animals to be sentient.

That is, they have the capacity to feel.

They can have positive or negative mental experiences.

Interests flow from these feelings.

That is, if an animal can suffer by feeling pain,

then it has an interest in avoiding pain.

Because we have complete control over the lives of captive animals,

our behavior towards them becomes important.

Animal ethics is complex because not everyone agrees how we

should determine our moral duties to animals,

and this gives rise to controversy over a range of issues.

For example, should we kill and eat animals?

Should we use them for medical research?

And should we keep them in zoos?

Some argue that the best approach to solving these questions is a cost-benefit

analysis, and that is the consequences of our actions that matter most.

The idea is, is that actions that might harm some sentient beings are justified

if they bring about greater benefits to other individuals.

The aim is to achieve the greatest good for

the greatest number, whether that be animals or humans.

A different viewpoint is that our moral behavior towards animals

should be based on respecting the rights of individuals, and

this gives rise to the animal rights viewpoint.

On this view, animals have rights that cannot be overridden

merely because overriding them would give rise to beneficial consequences, and

these rights could be the right to life, or the right not to suffer.

These differing ethical perspectives have important practical consequences.

On the cost-benefit view, farming is justified if the welfare costs

to the animals are outweighed by the benefits of their products.

However, the animal rights view does not accept agriculture, because animals

are used as a means to an end, and their individual rights are not respected.

Animal welfare organizations tend to campaign for better welfare standards.

For example, in poultry farming, to minimize welfare costs to the birds.

But animal rights organizations reject farming entirely and campaign for

a complete ban on the rearing of birds for eggs or meat.

Whatever ethical framework is followed, there is wide agreement that animal

suffering matters, and this means that animals are worthy of protection by law.

Welfare legislation protects animals from deliberate abuse, and aims to ensure

a reasonable quality of life for captive animals, by setting minimum standards.

The extent of regulation varies widely from country to country.

And if you keep chickens, you should make yourself aware of

the rules in your country that govern how your birds must be kept.

The regulations may vary depending whether you have a few birds as pets or

whether you keep poultry commercially.

Many people who buy poultry products such as chicken and

eggs have ethical concerns about how is it being produced.

However, there are many factors that affect purchasing choices and

animal welfare is only one of these.

People are influenced by pricing, food safety concerns,

food quality and the knowledge of production methods.

It could be said that the public are generally not very well informed about

poultry production methods and their welfare implications.

This is partly because the media portrayal of farming is not very helpful,

tending to show the extremes of poor welfare for

shock value rather than the reality of normal production.

High welfare products usually cost more.

This is because the production systems involved are less intensive, so

the costs per bird are higher.

However, these systems are still profitable

because good bird welfare has a link with physical performance.

If a bird is healthy, not only does it produce and

grow better, it needs less treatment.

Research has examined people's willingness to pay for high welfare products and

has found that it is affected by factors such as income, age and nationality.

However, what has also been shown is that although people express a willingness

to pay for

high welfare products, this is not always reflected in what they actually buy.

So what do you think?

Are the welfare costs of farming outweighed by benefits to

the greater good?

Or is there something fundamentally wrong with killing animals?

And do your purchasing habits as a consumer reflect your concern for

animal welfare?

Or are they influenced by other factors?

Ethics and Poultry Production

Chicken Behaviour and Welfare

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