Question: why did you decide to work with farm animals

Louise Pendry answered on 16 Mar 2010:

Hi Susan,

That’s a tough one. I wanted to work with a type of animal in which if science could make a difference to the animal’s welfare it would make a big difference – hopefully by 1) making a big difference to each animal and 2) making a difference to lots of animals. For me farm animals (especially chickens) fitted the bill.

Basically, the way I see it is…
All the time people want to eat there are going to be farm animals. Sometimes the welfare needs of the animal come into conflict with the desire of humans to have cheap meat and plenty of it.

To make meat more affordable two main things have happened to farm animals:
1) The animals have been genetically selected for desirable traits – e.g. increased milk production or faster growth.
2) The animals have been housed more intensively (more animals in a smaller area) e.g. keeping layer chickens in cages.

Unfortunately these measures make meat cheap for us but they often end up with poorer welfare for the farm animals which means that the animals are suffering. Lots of farm animals suffer problems due to:
• Lameness (limping because they are in pain)
• Boredom (not enough to do in a cage or pen)
• Aggression from other animals (over-crowded pens)
• And so on…

But the reality is that people are not going to stop meat so we need to find ways to try to improve the welfare of animals while still making meat affordable. This is going to be an even bigger challenge as the population of the world grows and we have more mouths to feed. It’s a challenge that we need to take up though if we are to keep trying to improve the welfare of farm animals. I wanted to be a part of that!

What do you think Susan? Would you like to work with farm animals?