10
Close Neighbours
This section so far has explored how the minds of sentient animals have been shaped by the environments inhabited by themselves and their ancestors. We have seen how, over the generations, they have selected the tools best served to their special needs and, with benefit of the properties of deep sentience, honed their skills and developed their minds to promote the wellbeing of themselves, their descendants and, within social species, the wellbeing of the tribe. This chapter considers the impact of domestication on the development of sentient minds by examining our close neighbours: animals for whom the greatest environmental challenge has been the impact of close contact with humans. These include our companion animals, dogs, cats and horses, whom we regard and treat as individuals and the farmyard animals, pigs, chickens and dairy cows, who may or may not attract our affection but who are, for the most part, regarded en masse. Both have had to adapt to a life in which they are dependent on us for their maintenance and wellbeing. I also include within the category of close neighbours, wild rats, urban foxes and other species who have had to adjust their lives to the impact of civilization.
We humans have domesticated animals to serve our own wants and needs, for food, for work, for sport, for love and companionship and, with the best will in the world, our approach to them has been determined by our needs, not theirs, so inevitably reflects our attitudes to them, not theirs to us. We may choose to make a pet of a pig or a rat, rather than a dog or a cat, but that only adjusts our approach to one individual, not the entire species, however much we might wish otherwise. There was a rather touching illustration of this in a TV commercial some years ago. A cattle rancher from the southern USA has just won the lottery. He drives his enormous automobile out to see his herd of cows, waves his winning cheque and announces: ‘Good news ladies, you have all been reclassified as pets!’. If only.
History of Domestication
In keeping with my central theme, this section will consider the history of domestication through the eyes of the animals that have become domesticated. I use the word domesticated throughout, rather than domestic because it describes a process. In taxonomic terms, there is no such thing as a domestic animal. Nevertheless, some species have adapted better to domestication than others. According to archaeological evidence, the first species to become domesticated was the wolf, about 15 000 years ago, before the dawn of agriculture when humans were still hunter‐gatherers. Some wolves began to scavenge for food around the fringes of human encampments. Those who did found rewards that contributed to their fitness, the numbers of this sub‐population increased, their minds and bodies evolved and, in time, they became what we now call dogs. In terms of both fitness and wellbeing, this process of domestication carried significant benefits to the individual animals that chose to become domesticated. In time, humans learnt to derive benefit from employing dogs as guardians and aids to the hunting of wild animals. However, I guess they threw out scraps to these semi‐domesticated wolves just as much because they liked to have them around. Today, dogs make wide‐ranging contributions to society. These include herding sheep, guiding the blind, sniffing out bombs, drugs and diseases and comforting the afflicted. Most people however choose to live with dogs simply because they add to our quality of life.
The next wave of domestication came with the birth of agriculture, about 12 000 years ago. Humans who lived in areas suitable for the growing of crops were able to form larger, more settled communities. Others, on more marginal lands, adopted a nomadic lifestyle. However, both gained benefits from the management of a small number of herbivorous species, like sheep, that were relatively easy to semi‐domesticate and provided an excellent source of food and clothing. These largely defenceless herbivores derived significant benefits from controlled feeding through movement to good pastures and protection from predators, often employing already domesticated dogs that happened to be to hand.
The domestication of cattle came later. It is not clear how humans first managed to domesticate the large and aggressive auroch but cattle and similar species, such as the water buffalo and yak, have proved of immense service to humankind for millennia as providers of work, milk, clothing, meat, fertiliser and fuel. Mass consumption of cattle meat as beef is a very recent development, made possible largely by refrigeration. Throughout most of the history of agriculture, cattle were more valuable alive than dead. The house cow provided a continuous supply of nutritious milk and probably an income from milk sales. A small number of male cattle would be kept to pull the plough. Most males failed to outlive special occasions that called for the slaughter of the fatted calf while it was still drinking from its mother.
It is significant, however, that only a very small proportion of mammalian species have successfully adapted to domestication. In the case of birds, the proportion is tiny. Only chickens, turkeys and other largely flightless birds have benefited, in a strictly Darwinian sense, from an existence entirely determined by humans. In terms of simple numbers, the broiler chicken can be described as the most successful vertebrate species on earth. This is an extreme example of the truth that Darwinian fitness of the species does not necessarily equate with wellbeing of the individual.
The fact that domestication has only succeeded in very few species suggests that it only works on the rare occasions when it carries some benefits to both parties. The process has features in common with Thomas Hobbes’ concept of the Social Contract in human society whereby individuals and groups sacrifice certain freedoms in order to obtain social benefits and thereby avoid lives that are ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. There are obvious limitations to this analogy. Whatever the quality of life may be for animals reared for meat, their lives will be short. The social contract, as applied to farm animals, may be summarised in the bleak but honest phrase: ‘for the first six months, the farmer feeds the pig; for the next six months, the pig feeds the farmer’. For a true social contract to exist, all parties must relinquish certain freedoms but retain certain rights. This means that all parties should be involved in the negotiations, and, for obvious reasons, the animals are unable to negotiate terms. Any form of social contract will be corrupted when one party gains absolute power without natural or legal checks and balances. While I do not accept that the exploitation of animals en masse in the name of food production necessarily abuses the principle of justice with respect to sentient farmed animals and the living environment, abuses do occur, especially within some forms of large‐scale factory farming, driven by machines and fossil fuels and insulated from the needs of the land and the life of the land. In all these matters, we carry total responsibility to ensure justice. We are the moral agents; the animals and the land are the moral patient. I shall have more to say on this in the final chapter.
Before we conclude that domestication is always unjust because we humans always hold the cards, consider the case of the so‐called domesticated cat. Rudyard Kipling’s quintessential ‘Cat that walked by itself’ (36) chose to enter a human household entirely out of self‐interest, offering little in return. In agricultural societies, cats can be useful predators, keeping the grain stores free of rats and mice, but even this is done entirely on their terms. In the home, cats adapt well to being the recipients of our love. It is difficult to argue with the old saying that ‘dogs have owners, cats have staff’.
Artificial Selection and Unnatural Breeding
One of the most significant impacts of domestication on the animals is that we take control of their reproduction. In the wild, breeding is by natural selection. They choose their mates, those that make the best choices have greater reproductive success, their offspring carry a higher proportion of genes consistent with fitness in their natural habitat, and so the process of adaptation to the environment through natural selection proceeds to promote the survival of the fittest. This is not a planned operation but, viewed in hindsight, it is, by definition, the one that works, barring catastrophic change to climate and/or habitat.
When we manage animals in harsh and challenging environments such as the Highlands of Scotland or the Siberian plains, we adopt a breeding policy that is close to natural selection so as to maintain the survival of the breeding flock or herd. An ‘improved’ ram or bull may be used on a selected number of females to produce meatier lambs or calves to be reared on a higher plane of nutrition for early slaughter. Modern, highly industrialised agriculture has removed the challenges of the natural environment by confining animals in climate‐controlled barns and delivering their food by machines. In many cases, this intensification has been supported by the widespread use of antibiotics to control bacterial diseases linked to high‐density living. When we remove the natural challenges that have defined the natural form and functions of animals, we can practice artificial selection for traits that best serve our interests, like more milk and more meat. Measured strictly in terms of productivity, the success of the agricultural industry has been spectacular. Chickens are now raised to slaughter weight in less than 40 days. Cows that once produced ten litres of milk per day can now produce sixty. All this has happened in the last 60 years. The genetic potential for these enormous changes was there but could only be expressed when we changed the rules. It should come as no surprise to learn that extreme selection pressure for production traits has led to loss of fitness in farm animals bred for intensive production. Serious examples include severe leg weakness in broiler chickens leading to chronic pain in birds that outgrow their strength (34), and early deaths in dairy cows exhausted by prolonged high milk production. To be fair, breeders and producers are beginning to acknowledge these problems and modify their genetic selection criteria to give less emphasis to traits linked strictly to production and more to traits linked to robustness. This has had considerable impact on the robustness of dairy cattle (78). The most extreme examples of the capacity of humans to mess around with the normal, healthy process of natural selection are displayed by what we have done to the dog. Even if the wolves that first approached human encampments had long‐term foresight (which they hadn’t) they could not have imagined morphing into giant Great Danes, with a high probability of dying early from bone cancers, Chihuahuas committed to repeated Caesarian sections because their heads are too large for their pelvic cavity, or Pugs and French bulldogs with noses and throats so distorted that they can hardly breath. The impact of these practices on the minds of these dogs will be considered later. Here, I would just make the point that the whole notion of breeds is unnatural. It is an entirely human construct. Adaptation to changing environments through natural selection proceeds, when necessary, through the evolution of new species. Breeding is something we have imposed on them, unasked.
Domestication, Sentience and Wellbeing
The wellbeing of a sentient animal depends on its success in adapting to its physical and social environment. In a natural environment, the animal will inevitably be faced by problems. When this happens, the animal with a sentient mind will have to think for itself. With domestication, we are able to protect them from many of the challenges of the natural world, but we restrict their independence and freedom of choice. We can also create a new set of mental stresses, often resulting not from too much challenge but too little.
The first pair of animals I consider are the dog and the pig. These may seem like an odd couple when viewed through our eyes but, in nature, the two species have much in common. Pigs and dogs (and I mean proper dogs, not man‐made aberrations) are both medium‐sized, strong animals with powerful teeth, capable of holding their own in combat. In consequence, both are likely to be confident, adapt well to the company of humans but can be dangerously aggressive when under stress. Both are intensely curious, keen to investigate the environment using their well‐developed sense of smell. Both can be toilet trained. Both produce large litters of relatively undeveloped offspring so must exercise a great deal of maternal care, which includes aggression when they fear that their piglets or pups may be in danger. Both are omnivores: their capacity to digest food of plant and animal origin is similar to that of humans. In practice, wolves that inhabit the Northern forests must subsist largely on an animal‐based diet because there is not much else to eat. Pigs can and will eat anything. Dogs and pigs also have a lot in common in their social life. In a natural environment, pigs tend to form small social groups of about three sows with perhaps five to six piglets each. Within that social group there will be a hierarchy, but sows help each other to look after the piglets and will often form communal nests. Boars are solitary. Wolves and African hunting dogs form packs made up of extended family groups with a strict hierarchical structure. Pack members work together and form close emotional bonds but recognise and are subservient to the pack leaders, the breeding pair, alpha male and female This social behaviour works very well for a species that needs to hunt as a pack in order to kill large animals like the caribou.
Pigs
Let us look first at the impact of domestication on the life and mind of the pig. The story is not all bad. I live in deepest Somerset, in the midst of a traditional mixed farm gaining its income from a sustainable mix of arable and dairy. The road between our house and the farmyard is quiet enough for dogs and pigs to roam in the street. My neighbour, Martin, breeds Large Black pigs mainly as a hobby and takes them to shows around the country. His sows range freely although constrained by farm gates. Not so the piglets, which can get anywhere. Only last Sunday, (as I write) while working in the garden I was joined by a group of eight black piglets who lolloped around with great enthusiasm, exploring this and that for about ten minutes then left for home in their own time. This, I have to concede, is atypical.
At the time of farrowing, the sow is highly motivated to make a deep bed of straw or other suitable material to create a nest in which to give birth and suckle her piglets. Forest‐ranging sows make nests of branches and small twigs. This housekeeping behaviour can occupy her for many hours and given enough straw, some nests can be enormous. This is highly adaptive behaviour. New‐born piglets are much more sensitive to cold than their mother and are in danger of crushing when the large, clumsy sow lies down to present her teats to her litter. A bed of deep straw keeps the piglets warm and allows them to escape when the sow slumps to the ground. Some high welfare farms reproduce these conditions very well but in the majority of intensively housed units, sows are restrained before they give birth in a metal farrowing crate that restricts their movements to standing up and lying down. A few sows may be given a token amount of straw. Piglets are encouraged to keep away from the sow and huddle under heat lamps. At three weeks of age, the piglets are prematurely weaned and transferred to barren all metal flat deck cages. For many years, the practice was to rebreed sows as soon as possible after weaning then confine them throughout pregnancy in stalls where, once again, their only options were to stand up and lie down. This was an engineers’ approach to the problems of aggression and piglet mortality, but it is totally unsympathetic to the behavioural needs and emotional state of both sow and piglets. These units are also expensive to build.
In recent years, public pressure for improved welfare standards for the rearing of pigs has led to some significant improvements. Pregnancy stalls for sows are now banned in UK, the EU and many states within the USA. Farrowing crates are still permitted but, in UK, there has been a major shift towards the management of breeding sows in outdoor units with individual arks wherein they can shelter and give birth and nurse their piglets. On light, well‐drained soils, these units can be as profitable as the highly engineered pig factories, especially when outdoor bred and outdoor reared pork products attract a high‐welfare premium. I have heard farmers say: ‘this system is all very well, but I couldn’t possibly manage it because my land is far too wet’. The simple, ecologically sound answer to this is ‘in which case, yours is not cut out to be a pig farm’.
In the 1980s, the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council proposed the concept of the ‘Five Freedoms and Provisions’ as a simple but comprehensive framework for assessing the impact of different management systems on the physical and emotional welfare of farm animals. At the time these were defined as:
- Freedom from hunger and thirst – by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour
- Freedom from discomfort – by providing a suitable environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area
- Freedom from pain, injury and disease – by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment
- Freedom from fear and stress – by ensuring conditions that avoid mental suffering
- Freedom to express normal behaviour – by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and the company of the animal’s own kind.
These rules are close to being comprehensive and the first four freedoms from have stood the test of time. The fifth is a freedom to, and as with all such freedoms can create semantic and moral problems. What is normal? Is normal behaviour necessarily acceptable behaviour? To quote Isaac Stern ‘my freedom to swing my fist stops at the point of your nose’. On reflection, I believe the fifth freedom would be better described as Freedom of choice and I shall interpret it this way.
Table 10.1 uses the conventions of the five freedoms to assess threats to the wellbeing of sows in intensive and outdoor units. Whether indoors or out, breeding sows are likely to be fed once daily a ration that they can consume in a few minutes. Thereafter, outdoor sows can, if they choose, nose around for hours in the hope of finding a few discarded grains, insects or, if they are lucky, the occasional worm. Confined sows can do no more than chew the bars of their stalls. The ration of food offered to the two groups will be the same. However, the outdoor sows have had the satisfaction of foraging, the indoor sows the frustration of long hours with no oral satisfaction whatsoever. Physical discomfort will inevitably be greater for sows confined on concrete and with no opportunity to relieve discomfort through scratching or dust bathing. The risk of thermal discomfort is low for both systems. The weather can present problems for sows out of doors but, on the right land, these can be minimised through good management including the provision of shelters. When it rains, the sows can retire to their ark if they so wish. They have freedom of choice. When it is hot, they should have the freedom to wallow in mud, which is preferable to clean water since it evaporates slowly and so provides a lasting cooling mechanism for pigs who cannot sweat. White pigs can suffer from sunburn, but breeders now produce hybrid sows with pigmented skin better suited to being out in the sun. These strains are usually derived from sows of the coloured Saddleback, or Hampshire breed, which are proven good mothers and therefore particularly well suited to environments where the responsibility for successful piglet rearing has been left largely to their care. Cold stress is seldom a problem for sows, especially if they have access to a well‐insulated bed in their arks. Cold, dry winter days do not appear to restrict the time they spend foraging out of doors. The risk of injury is set at moderate for indoor and low for outdoor systems. Sows condemned to live on concrete are more prone to abrasive injuries and musculoskeletal problems arising from their restricted movement. Sows can be aggressive and do a great deal of damage to one another especially when in close confinement. Outdoors, at lower density, they will usually sort out problems by social distancing. The occasional rogue sow can be removed.
Table 10.1 Threats to the physical and emotional wellbeing of breeding sows in intensively housed and outdoor units.
| Threat | Intensive, indoor | Extensive, outdoor |
|---|---|---|
| Hunger Physical discomfort Thermal discomfort Disease Injury Fear and stress Freedom of choice |
