Animal Welfare This week I was accused of poor standards of animal welfare and I wanted to share this because it is important to take the emotion out of such things to better understand industrial farming.

For chickens raised outdoors in an environment that allows them to feel the sun, eat grass, scratch in the dirt and essentially express their natural behaviours, most people see this as a high standard of animal welfare - standards we believe in at Life On The Land.  Poor welfare is typically associated with factory farmed animals in crowded sheds, etc.

All I will say in regards to my accuser is that they are a professional in the poultry industry with many years of experience.

After receiving a barrage of reasons why our animal welfare standards are poor; mainly being weather variations, no nutritional content in pasture and mineral deficiencies in Australian soils, I asked, 'Are these the issues you experienced when raising chickens outdoors?'

'No!  I haven't done it, but I've got thirty years of experience that says your way is wrong,' came the reply.

How interesting.  I have seen first hand the tremendous effects our grasses have on our birds - legumes, grass seeds, let alone the insects and worms ... and observing the selective grazing of our chickens, they certainly have a 'palette preference' on the grasses they enjoy the most.

The weather is an interesting one too.  No matter how you raise animals, there will always be losses.  It is part of raising them.  What people need to remember is that raising animals outdoors does subject them to weather extremes and predators.  It happens and we have lost chickens.  We use shelters and electric fencing to provide protection and  loses have been minimal therefore demonstrating this as an effective control.  Without shelters none would survive - it is basic animal husbandry to provide appropriate protection for your animals.

So does confinement factory operations have a 'one up' in this regard?  We each have our own opinion.  Sure there are climate control systems available to give chickens a set temperature in sheds, but there are more elements involved than just this.  The huge amount of energy required to run them, the buildup of diseases, a diet of medication to keep the animal alive ... this is not even sustainable let alone regenerative and I for one wouldn't want to eat one of those animals.

No system is perfect, but for me raising animals as naturally as possible is the way forward.  I can't vouch for my animals happiness, but I observe my chickens closely everyday.  They take an obvious pleasure in  sunning themselves, they pick at the food they want to eat in the field, they chase down worms with a sense of relish and I have never, in my thirty seven years, seen a chicken do that in a shed.