Very young piglets in a dark factory farm, standing on a hard floor.

The reality of farming animals: painful mutilations.

In animal industries across Australia, animals can have pieces of their bodies cut off, sliced open, and burned away... without any pain relief. This cruelty is not only legal, but also routine.

Animals Australia

Animals Australia team

Last updated September 30, 2024

If the tail were cut off a dog or cat, it would be considered prosecutable cruelty. But for animals categorised as ‘food’ rather than ‘friend’, painful surgical mutilations are sadly part of their unnaturally short lives…

The drive to maximise production and profit in the meat, eggs and dairy industries has led to routine farming practices that completely disregard the welfare of animals. These practices are anything but ‘normal’, but they have sadly become the ‘norm’ in farming today.

How is this allowed to happen? Farming industries have been given exemptions to the cruelty laws that apply to our companion animals, leaving farmed animals exposed to immense suffering. Most farmed animals are forced to endure these procedures without any pain relief, despite pain relief products being affordable and readily available for use in Australia.

Read on to find out the types of procedures cattle, sheep, pigs, and hens are subjected to on Australian farms:


Cattle

Dehorning

When a cow is ‘dehorned’, her horns and the sensitive tissue near her skull are cut, sawn, or scraped out. Knives, wires, saws and shears, and even ‘scooping’ implements, are commonly used. Dehorning is one of the most traumatic experiences cattle are forced to endure, but there are no laws requiring them to receive any pain relief.

In the dairy industry, young ‘heifer’ calves often suffer a similarly painful practice called ‘disbudding’. This usually involves either a hot iron being pressed against their head to permanently damage their horn ‘buds’, a caustic chemical being applied, or their sensitive horn tissue being scraped out of the recess in their skull.

Dehorning is intended to make cattle easier to handle and prevent injuries during transport, or if they are forced into crowded feedlots – times when these animals are understandably stressed and scared.

A cow’s horns are connected to their sinuses; when cut off (especially if they are older) their frontal sinuses can be damaged and exposed, placing them at risk of infection and extreme bleeding. As a result, their painful wounds can take much longer to heal.

Branding

On many farms, calves are forced to endure dehorning, castration, ear notching and branding all at once. One by one, they are pinned down, or squeezed in a ‘crush’ pen; their horns are cut off; (if they are male) their testes are cut out; their ears notched, and a red hot iron is seared into their skin, leaving a permanent mark.

The branding iron may alternatively be dipped into a coolant, such as liquid nitrogen before being pressed against the calf’s skin. While freeze branding is initially less painful, both forms of branding can cause ongoing pain. Poorly maintained branding irons and the stress caused to animals during handling and restraint can all lead to further injuries.

Sheep

Live lamb cutting (known as ‘mulesing’)

Young lambs often have the skin around their buttocks and the base of their tail cut off with a pair of metal shears (to reduce soiling and the risk of flystrike). The large, open wound created by ‘mulesing’ can take many weeks to heal. During this time, lambs are at added risk of infection and flystrike.

While mulesing is inflicted on lambs to reduce flystrike, it is a human-created problem and solutions that are less invasive and painful exist. Merino sheep traditionally had smooth skin; in the 1880s, Australian producers began selectively breeding sheep with excessive amounts of skin, believing more wool could be harvested from sheep with more skin.

This painful practice has been banned in New Zealand on cruelty grounds. The Australian wool industry committed to phasing out mulesing, but later backflipped on its commitment, and in 2016, would not even support the mandatory use of pain relief for mulesed lambs. Over 140 million lambs have undergone live lamb cutting since 2010, many with no pain relief whatsoever.

Thanks to tireless animal advocates speaking out, Victoria and Tasmania recently became the first states to require at least some pain relief for the procedure.

Shearing

Shearing is stressful for sheep, who aren’t used to human handling, and rough treatment in the shearing shed also puts them at risk of injury. Sheep are often cut by the sharp shearing blades, and when they suffer larger wounds, it is considered acceptable industry practice to stitch them up without providing any pain relief.

As with those who carry out other painful, invasive procedures, there is currently no requirement for shearers to undergo formal training and accreditation.

Pigs

Tail docking

Pigs are known to be intelligent, highly social and inquisitive animals – and they can quickly become bored and even aggressive when confined to barren pens in factory farms. Tail biting is one way that pigs can try to vent their frustrations. Instead of giving them more space, the pig industry routinely cuts off their tails, through bone, when they are only days old.

This image contains content which some may find confronting

A bucket with dozens of piglets' tails that have been cut off.
Warning: graphic content. In the pig meat industry, terrified young piglets are picked up and have their tails cut off.
Image credit: Farm Transparency Project

Tail docking causes acute stress in piglets, who respond by squealing and ‘scooting’ – sitting and dragging their bottoms along the floor. The procedure can also cause neuromas to develop at the wound site, which is associated with increased sensitivity to pain long-term.

Hens

Beak cutting

In densely packed, confined living spaces, hens inevitably become frustrated, which can lead to them pecking each other. The industry’s ‘solution’ to this is ‘debeaking’ or beak trimming, which involves removing the end of a young hen’s beak in an attempt to limit the injuries caused. A hot blade or infrared laser is usually used to perform the procedure on chicks, and it is done without any pain relief.

A hen peers through the bars of a battery cage.

A chicken’s beak (like that of all birds) is a complex, sensitive structure. Chickens use their beaks to grasp and manipulate food, nest, and preen their feathers. The beak-trimming procedure causes the birds to feel acute and often chronic pain and also impacts their welfare by hindering the functioning of their beaks.


Help shape a kinder future for farmed animals

The animals trapped in our outdated food system are capable of experiencing joy and suffering, just like the companion animals we share our homes and our hearts with. But categorised as ‘food’ rather than ‘friend’, these animals are seen as things to be used, instead of the sensitive and social individuals they are.

We didn’t choose this way of thinking; we inherited it from those before us – and thankfully, it doesn’t have to stay this way.

With some simple changes to the way we eat and live, we can create a kinder world for farmed animals (as well as wildlife and humans, too!).

Get your free guide today. Nearly there! Thank you ! Thank you!

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