Notes to accompany PowerPoint presentation on animal
rights
For KS4 60 minute lesson presentation
Slide 12
4,033,310 million animals were experimented on in British laboratories in 2012.
Source: Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2012
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212610/spanimals12.pdf
Slide 13
See notes for animal experiments talk slide 5.
Slide 14
Toxicity tests made up 9% of all experiments in UK in 2012.
Source: Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2012
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212610/spanimals12.pdf
Toxicity tests
Most acute (short term) drug toxicity tests involve force-feeding animals by gavage (a long tube pushed
down into the stomach), or injecting them, often in high doses to assess its poisonous effect (acute
toxicity). Some of the symptoms observed in acute toxicity tests include nasal discharge, loss of fur,
vomiting, diarrhoea, tremors, breathing difficulties, internal bleeding, convulsions, coma, paralysis, and
death.
After acute toxicity tests, chronic or long tests involving repeated doses of a drug, lasting anywhere from
6 months to more than two years, are conducted to investigate its potential to cause cancer
(carcinogenicity), mutations (mutagenicity) and birth defects (teratogenicity). Tests are also carried out to
examine how the drug is absorbed, distributed around the body, metabolised and excreted (ADME).
These involve blood and other body fluid samples being taken repeatedly. Most animals used in chronic
toxicity tests are killed at the end so that the drug’s effect on their tissues can be examined.
Source: Making A Killing, p5, Animal Aid 2008 and Bad Ethics Bad Science, p12/13, Animal Aid 2010
For more information on toxicity testing, see: Lethal Business, Animal Aid 2005
Slide 15
‘animal experiments often give results that are misleading and unreliable.’
See notes for animal experiments talk slides 11 - 16.
Slide 16
‘There are lots of alternatives’
See notes for animal experiments talk slide 19
Slide 18
The average meat-eater consumes around 5,000 animals in their lifetime - including five cows, 780
chickens, 20 pigs, 29 sheep, 46 turkeys, 18 ducks, one goose and 7 rabbits 4 and approximately 4,000
fish 5.
1) Animal Aid website: Veggie and vegan campaigns overview
2) Animal Aid factfile: The Suffering of Farmed Poultry – Broiler Chickens (2011)
3) Animal Aid report: Best of British? The Pig Industry Exposed (2008)
4) VIVA website question17
5) Estimate based on calculation: if average meat eater consumes one fish a week and the average life expectancy
in the UK is 79 years, then in a lifetime they would consume: 79 x 52 = 4,108 fish.
Slide 19
Egg laying hens
The barren battery cage was banned in the EU on 01 January 2012. However, the use of ‘enriched’
cages remains legal. The original enriched cages housed 10 hens, but most recent systems are colony
cages housing 60-80 hens.
Colony cages are slightly less crowded (space per hen around 20% larger than an A4 piece of paper) and
the hens have a small area to move around in. Nest boxes, litter, perch space and ‘claw shortening
devices’ must be provided.
Enriched cages provide some improvement but they are still restrictive, the hens cannot fly up to a high
perch to be safe from feather pecking, the litter area is often very limited and effective dust-bathing isn’t
possible.
Caged hens may never experience natural light or fresh air and do not leave their cages until they are
taken for slaughter.
CIWF website: Welfare issues for egg laying hens
For more info on intense egg laying hens see Animal Aid website: The suffering of factory farmed chickens
For more info on enriched cages see Animal Welfare Education Network website: What is an enriched cage?
Slide 21
Broiler chickens
Approximately 95 per cent of birds reared for meat are intensively farmed inside broiler sheds. The
remaining 5 per cent are ‘free-range’ or organic.
Chicks are artificially hatched and then housed in huge, windowless sheds for the duration of their sixweek growing period. Often, a modern broiler house holds around 45,000 birds, who are usually kept on
a litter bed of wood shavings or chopped straw. As the birds grow, space for individuals decreases. By
the end of the growing cycle, each bird has only 0.5 square ft of floor and must push his or her way
through a solid mass of other chickens to reach food and water points. Because serious leg problems are
endemic, many die in the attempt.
The life span of an unconfined chicken can be up to 10 years, yet broilers are usually slaughtered at 42
days. This is before they reach sexual maturity. They reach adult size so quickly because of a
combination of genetic selection and the use of a high protein diet. Antibiotics with growth-promoting
properties are also used, although they are formally administered for medicinal reasons.
Animal Aid factfile: The Suffering of Farmed Poultry – Broiler Chickens (2011)
Slide 22/23
The combination of accelerated growth rates and unhealthy living conditions accounts for the huge
number of birds who die prematurely. They are vulnerable to heart attacks, septicaemia and fatty livers
and kidneys. They also suffer a high incidence of deformities, caused by arthritis, together with the stress
of carrying so much weight on young bones. Nearly one-third have difficulty in walking or cannot walk at
all, despite the fact that many of the weaker birds are ‘culled’ inside the sheds.
Many broiler chickens also die from ascites: their growth rate is so rapid that their heart, lungs and
circulatory system struggle to maintain sufficient oxygen levels. This results in breathlessness and
distended abdomens caused by a build-up of yellow or bloodstained fluid. Respiratory or heart failure kills
one in 20 birds.
Animal Aid factfile: The Suffering of Farmed Poultry – Broiler Chickens (2011)
Slide 22/23
Pig farming
Slide 25
Seventy per cent of British pig meat comes from animals reared intensively, but even 'outdoor reared' and
'outdoor raised' pigs spend half or more of their lives indoors.
Animal Aid report: Best of British? The Pig Industry Exposed (2008)
Slide 26
Farrowing crates
The sows are put into 'farrowing crates' - one of the most barbaric tools of the factory farming industry about a week before they give birth and are kept there for about a month afterwards. Farrowing crates
are barren, metal and concrete cages, just a few inches longer and wider than the sow herself. She
cannot step forwards or backwards or even turn around for the duration of her restraint. Her newborn
piglets are forced to suckle from a small area known as a "creep", adjacent to but separate from, their
mother. The justification for the use of the farrowing crate is that the sow would otherwise crush her
young. Research, however, shows that, "given the right management", piglets delivered in loose housing
units suffer no more deaths than are found in farrowing crates.
Animal Aid website: The suffering of farmed pigs
Commercial sows normally produce just over 2 litters a year with around 10-12 piglets per litter. She has
a breeding lifetime of about 3 years before being replaced and sold for slaughter.
Dry sow stalls, which were banned in the UK in 1999, were used to incarcerate pigs for the whole of their
sixteen-and-a-half week pregnancy. They were four-sided crates, so small that the pig could not turn
around. There was no bedding or materials for rooting or nesting. The tether system was similar but
instead of having four sides, it had three and the sow was tethered by a short chain so that she could not
move. . . . Sow stalls are banned in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, as well as Britain,
and in 2013 they will be illegal across the whole of the EU.
Animal Aid report: Best of British? The Pig Industry Exposed (2008)
Weaning
Although the natural weaning process takes two to three months, piglets are usually taken away at three
to four weeks so that their mothers can be impregnated again. The separation - which causes stress to
both mother and offspring - increases the speed with which the sow comes into season and thus she
becomes capable of having another litter sooner than nature intends.
Animal Aid website: The suffering of farmed pigs
Slide 27
After about six weeks, the young pigs are moved to similarly unsuitable rearing pens for final fattening on
a high protein diet.
Animal Aid website: The suffering of farmed pigs
Slide 28
Transport
Roughly 9 million pigs are slaughtered in British killing plants every year, and around 30,000 are exported
to Europe and further afield for killing.
Current EU rules allow pigs to travel for 24 hours. Throughout the 24 hours they must have continuous
access to water. If the destination can be reached within another 2 hours then they may go a full 26
hours. After a journey of 24 hours the pigs must be unloaded, given food and water and rested for 24
hours. Another 24 hour journey can then be repeated and this pattern can be repeated infinitely.
At the end of March (2004), the European Parliament voted to impose a 9 hour maximum overall journey
limit for animals travelling to slaughter. Before this can become law the measure requires the approval of
the Commission and the Agricultural Council of Ministers. A final decision has been deferred until 2011.
While a maximum journey length of 9 hours will be a considerable improvement on current legislation, it is
still a long time to be spent in a confined space with no room to turn around or lie down. Pigs do not travel
well; a significant number die from heat exhaustion, heart attacks or suffocation.
Animal Aid factfile: The suffering of farmed pigs
Slide 29
Slaughter
After four to seven months, pigs not selected for breeding purposes are sent for slaughter.
After three or four years of relentless exploitation, breeding females - as well as stud boars - are "spent"
and sent to slaughter. They will usually be turned into pie and sausage meat.
At the slaughterhouse, pigs are first given a powerful electric shock to their heads - an attempt to render
them ‘insensible to pain’ - before their throats are stabbed with a knife (known as ‘sticking’). Electric
stunning is reversible so it is vitally important that the stun is delivered for the correct duration, in the
correct place and using the correct current; and that the animal’s throat is cut as soon after stunning as is
possible (recommended time is no longer than 15 seconds). Secret filming by Animal Aid inside eight
randomly chosen British slaughterhouses revealed breaches of this law in every slaughterhouse that
used electric stunning. If electric tongs are applied wrongly they can cause agonising pain and still leave
the animal fully aware. Animals who are left too long after stunning can regain consciousness before
being killed. Even when stunning is done ‘correctly’, some observers believe that animals are simply
‘frozen’, rather than rendered insensible to pain.
Animal Aid website: The suffering of farmed pigs
Slide 30
Hunting
In May 2010, we published our annual Hunting Report, which covers the 2009-2010 hunting season. It
demonstrates that whilst a hardcore element in the hunting community continue to flout the law, the
Hunting Act is working well and there have been almost 140 convictions under the Act.
LACS website: Hunting campaign
Slide 31/32
Shooting
Animal Aid website: Overview of shooting campaign
Animal Aid: student factsheet on shooting.
Slide 33
Horse racing
Animal Aid website: Overview of horse racing campaign
Slide 34
Pet trade
Animal Aid factfile: The pet trade
Animal Aid student factsheet: Companion animals
Slide 35
Seal cull
Animal Aid student factsheet: The Canadian seal cull
Respect for Animals website: Boycott Canada
Animal Aid Youth Group: Stop the Canadian seal cull petition