All farmed animals in the European Union (E.U.) are recognized as sentient, meaning they’re living beings capable of feelings. Regardless, they’re still being kept in inhumane ways on industrial farms that prevent them from expressing their natural behaviors and cause immense suffering. This report discusses the key welfare issues of intensively farmed chickens, fishes, pigs, cows, and rabbits, highlighting where E.U. legislation is weak, outdated, and minimally enforced.

Chickens

Chickens are incredibly smart animals with unique personalities who need to forage and explore their surroundings. Yet, when raised for meat, they’re kept in barns that become increasingly crowded as they grow — and they grow quickly. Genetic selection for fast growth means they reach slaughter weight by about five weeks of age. This breeding practice makes their bones fragile, adding to their welfare issues.

Their crowded living conditions generate heat and ammonia, and when mixed with the dampness from their droppings, create a toxic environment. Across farms, skin lesions can be seen in 10 to 58% of birds.

The process of slaughter is also inhumane. The electrical waterbath often used to stun farmed chickens doesn’t always render them unconscious, leading to a stressful and cruel death.

Fishes

It was long thought that fishes don’t feel pain, but this isn’t true. Not only can they feel pain, but they experience different mental states too. In the wild, they have very diverse and enriching lives — the opposite of industrial farming where they’re kept in barren, crowded conditions. This makes the water quality poor, leads to injury, and spreads disease. Fishes are also routinely handled which is stressful and causes scale loss, bruising, and even death.

Slaughter practices vary widely between countries and species. Stunning before slaughter can minimize suffering, but only when done properly and by a skilled operator. This doesn’t usually happen because fishes differ in size and weight. Slaughter without stunning is particularly cruel for fishes. When put on ice or in an ice slurry bath, for instance, they die from a lack of oxygen. In an ice slurry bath, this can take up to 40 minutes for sea breams and 200 minutes for trouts.

Pigs

Pigs are intelligent, have individual personalities, and display a wide range of emotions. Their true nature isn’t seen in intensive farming, however, as female pigs usually spend their lives confined in small stalls. While the E.U. passed a partial ban on sow stalls in 2013, this hasn’t stopped the use of gestation stalls or farrowing crates. Although farrowing crates are meant to keep sows from crushing their piglets, they often increase crushing because they prevent natural movement and behavior. They also make mothers less responsive to their piglets’ needs and vocalizations.

Since farmed pigs are bred to grow so big, sows are on restricted diets during pregnancy. While the idea is to prevent obesity, this ultimately just makes them chronically hungry.

Stunning and slaughter are inhumane as pigs are often lowered into chambers filled with carbon dioxide, causing acute pain, distress, and, when exposed to the gas for long enough, death. Some still remain conscious, however, and experience intense pain and distress during slaughter.

Cows

Cows have evolved to live on pasture, but when intensively farmed, they’re forced to eat an unnatural diet while being confined indoors. In Denmark, for instance, over 70% of farmed cows were kept in zero-grazing systems in 2020.

Breeding for higher milk yields has also impacted cow welfare. As an example, even though the number of dairy cows in Denmark has decreased by 7% since 2002, annual milk production in the country has increased by 25%. Living conditions and increased milk production have created many health issues, including lameness, which impacts from 20 to 25% of E.U. dairy herds, and mastitis, a painful infection of the mammary glands.

To maintain milk production, female cows must give birth every year. Calves depend on their mothers until they’re weaned at around 6 to 8 months of age. However, in intensive farming systems, calves are separated from their mothers within hours or days from birth, even though research shows the benefits of keeping them together.

Rabbits

Farmed rabbits are more recently domesticated than other farmed species, so they still share many traits with wild rabbits, including the need to burrow and forage. However, the complex tunnel systems they dig in the wild are a far cry from the small cages they’re kept in on industrial farms, which provide no more space than an A4 sheet of paper for each rabbit. These wire-floored cages allow for very little natural movement and lead to foot injuries, lesions, and skeletal deformities. They also prevent female rabbits from nesting properly, which can put their babies at risk.

These highly stressful conditions weaken rabbits’ immune systems. On average, 15% of young rabbits may die before weaning and a further 15% may die following weaning. Antibiotics are routinely given in response. In France, for example, antibiotic use in farmed rabbits is over 10 times higher than in pigs, the species with the second highest usage.

Change Is Possible

All farmed animals are intelligent, emotional beings. Yet, they continue to be kept in cramped and often filthy conditions where they can’t express the full range of their natural behaviors. This creates stress, injuries, and illnesses, which the industry responds to by overusing antibiotics to help keep the animals healthy — leading to antimicrobial resistance.

Fortunately, E.U. citizens aren’t accepting these poor welfare conditions and inhumane slaughter practices, as evidenced by campaigns such as the “No Animal Left Behind” project which has received over 200,000 signatures. With the help of animal advocates, change for the E.U.’s farmed animals is possible through continued activism and public support.