surgical training

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:14:55 GMT

I agree about the MMB but blame the EU rather than Mrs Thatcher for it's demise-honestly it had to go because the EU said so

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Clive Ansell — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:59:38 GMT

Bring back the Milk Marketing Board, all is forgiven.

Another success story for Thatcherism, rising power of supermarkets, and free market economics then (can't find a sarcasm smiley

Re: surgical training

Thomas Johnson — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:19:43 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

I will however argue that farm gate prices are ridiculously low and that welfare would be vastly improved if prices were returned to the level where 40 to 80 cow herds were profitable

[/quote]

But it will never happen, bigger farms are always going to be more profiatble than smaller farms, so bigger farms will be able to generate the same profits on lower prices, and therefore drive down the prices and profits on smaller farms. So unless you consider subsidising smaller farms more than larger farms, or fixing prices, we're stuck with the current situation, however much you or I would like to see smaller family farms being more profitable.

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 13:55:49 GMT

Gillian If you took the trouble to read my postings properly you would find that I have never said "handful of cows in a shippon " because those farms were always too small for sufficient income to cater for high welfare standards-or not without a secondary income I will however argue that farm gate prices are ridiculously low and that welfare would be vastly improved if prices were returned to the level where 40 to 80 cow herds were profitable The most important word being profitable-because farm profitability is being constantly squeezed-and good welfare is totally impossible in an unprofitable farm

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Gillian Mostyn — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 20:19:19 GMT

Wynne - please could I borrow those rose tinted spectacles for a few days- I could use a bit of happy retrospectavision at the moment...

Seriously though, do you REALLY believe that animal welfare was better on farms in the days of a 'handful of cows in a shippon'? I agree with Michael (NEVER thought I'd say that) - happy animals, on the whole, are profitable animals.

I also think more highly of the farmers out there than you appear to do. In my (albeit limited) experience they are far more concerned with the welfare of their stock than a lot of people on this forum seem to believe. Not many people, including farmers, would deliberately allow animals to suffer.

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:16:50 GMT

If we could restore prices to the level of 50 years ago then smaller farms would have the money for staff and infrastructure I agree totally that it's the better farmers expanding-but those going to pack up go through a stage when they're trying to hang on-on a shoestring-and welfare plummets Farm gate prices need to double for real welfare improvements to be achievable

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Michael Woodhouse — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:01:09 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]But wouldn't good small PROFITABLE farms be better for welfare?[/quote]

I tend to think size is irrelevant. I don't think there is anything intrinsically better about a small farm. In theory a bigger farm has more staff and a better infrastructure to look after the animals. Hospital groups, new calved group, early and late dry cows etc, that you just cannot do if you've only got 80 milking cows.

As farm size increases then the skill of the farmer shines through. I suspect most people can make a decent go of milking 100 cows, but you have to be exceptional to milk 500 well. Obviously there are good and bad of any size, but on the whole it is the better farmers expanding and the worse consolidating and going to pack up when they can.

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:49:41 GMT

LOL Sylvia

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Sylvia Wilson — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:48:12 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

I think it's a question of cost If only we could get back to smaller farms being sufficiently prosperous to ensure high welfare standards and still give the farmers a good living I recently worked out that to restore the farm gate price of milk to the true level of 50 years ago, farmers would need 60p/l Blame the public for wanting cheap food

[/quote]

Or blame the supermarkets and large retailers in their relentless pursuit of profit at any cost (situation with dairy farmers this year) (go and see the number of French and Belgian milk tankers outside Robert Wiseman dairies near where I live). While the likes of Tesco make billions in profits, our small farmers and growers are driven out of business, and consumers are seeing month on month rises in food costs.

I can't see there being any improvment in farm animal welfare standards where the primary driving force is a demand for a cheaply produced food for the masses.

[/quote]

Q what's the difference between a supermarket buyer and a terrorist?

A you can negotiate with a terrorist...

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:46:19 GMT

But wouldn't good small PROFITABLE farms be better for welfare? Prosperous farmers don't necessarily mean better welfare-but the opposite is certainly true If farmers are strapped for cash then welfare is guaranteed to suffer

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Michael Woodhouse — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:37:44 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]I can't see there being any improvment in farm animal welfare standards where the primary driving force is a demand for a cheaply produced food for the masses. [/quote]

Actually to be profitable farmer have to maximise their efficiency and animals that are fed well and looked after grow faster and produce more milk. Increased welfare (to a point) does have a measurable improvement on production and therefore the farmer's profitability.

It's the good, big farms that make money.

Re: surgical training

Clive Ansell — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:24:05 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

[/quote]

I can't see there being any improvment in farm animal welfare standards where the primary driving force is a demand for a cheaply produced food for the masses.

Re: surgical training

KMurphy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:54:07 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"] Vegetarians: don't kid yourself that your dietary choice is anything other than a lifestyle choice, the luxury of which you can make because of the wide availability of alternative non-meat based food sources in a modern society.[/quote]

I agree 100% with this. However, given the wide variety of food available to us, surely there is even less of an excuse for intensive production systems?

I am, incidentally, not always vegetarian when I travel. I will be when possible - such as in restaurants - but when I'm staying in poor communities or in somebody's home I will eat meat if it is offered.

Re: surgical training

Mark Hedberg — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:53:47 GMT

[quote user="Malcolm Ness"]

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"]Well, humans[/quote]

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"] so they're designed[/quote]

But surely ................ on second thoughts, it's perhaps best not to go there.

Another Dawkins moment safely avoided!

[/quote]

Hehe - nice footwork! :D (i happen to believe that the Old Testament is metaphorical, not literal, so I don't believe there's any conflict between the theory of evolution and religious text. Sure, scientists have explained a lot of how the Trick was done; does that make it any less amazing? )

Re: surgical training

Mark Hedberg — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:50:27 GMT

[quote user="KMurphy"]

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"]they're suffering from protein deficiency and b vitamin deficiency because they eat refined white bread, crisps, fries, veggie pizzas. They avoid whole grains, legumes, and the tasty yummy veggies[/quote]

This is an education issue rather than a vegetarian issue. I know lots of non-vegetarians that are equally malnourished and there are distance runners who thrive on vegan diets (cf Scott Jurek). None of this changes the ethics involved.

[/quote]

True; Ernie Ward is vegan and runs Iron Man Triathlons. Far, far, far better shape than I am! Still, you're correct - neither is innately superior over the other.

Re: surgical training

Malcolm Ness — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:44:35 GMT

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"]Well, humans[/quote]

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"] so they're designed[/quote]

But surely ................ on second thoughts, it's perhaps best not to go there.

Another Dawkins moment safely avoided!

Re: surgical training

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:43:29 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]I don't have a duty to protect the welfare of all animals, only those committed to my care.[/quote] For once I find myself agreeing with David (shock horror)! As custodians of the earth and the only species that can systematically determine the fate of other species we all (not just vets) have a duty of care for all animal species. There may be times when our own well-being is affected by another species in some way which alters this relationship such as rats in the kitchen of a wasp that is trying to sting us and take action of self-preservation but that does not alter our moral responsibility to protect the welfare of the species as a whole especially if we are using/farming it for our explicit benefit.

But then various aspects of our natural relation with other animals in an evolutionary sense comes into play. I don't suppose prehistoric man thought too much about the welfare of an individual woolly mammoth as he speared it but needs must and their survival was pre-eminent in their thoughts, however it is well recognised that even primitive cultures knew enough about ecology that their survival depended on not over-exploiting their environment. Which brings me neatly to the vegetarian argument. Vegetarians: don't kid yourself that your dietary choice is anything other than a lifestyle choice, the luxury of which you can make because of the wide availability of alternative non-meat based food sources in a modern society. We evolved to be omnivorous for a reason and it is widely recognised that the development of the bigger brain that gives you the ability to make irrational dietary choices was dependant on the nutrition available from eating animal products and if your forefathers had not eaten meat you would not have the brain capacity that enables you to make these choices, Our position as the pre-eminent species gives us the capacity and the moral responsibility to care for all the farm and pet species, as well as the ecology of the entire planet, which we exploit but does not mean we have to deny our evolutionary ancestry.

Re: surgical training

KMurphy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:33:41 GMT

Re: surgical training

KMurphy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:30:57 GMT

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"]So if turkeys were not bred for us to eat at Christmas, again I ask, what would become of them and their welfare standards?[/quote]

Well, most commercial turkeys would probably die quite quickly and certainly wouldn't reproduce because they're unable to do so naturally. Also, there wouldn't be 35 million of them being produced for slaughter each year. Scale does come into it. Do you not have an issue with 35000 turkeys entering the scalding tank alive? Or those pigs last year who had cigarettes put out on them in the slaughterhouse and were terrified before their death?

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"] I struggle to see how everyone becoming vegetarian would lead to some kind of animal utopia....????[/quote]

It doesn't. There is no perfect system. I have no major issues with eating animals that have had a good quality life and a humane slaughter. I just know that they system we have now is a very long way from perfect and could be improved drastically by reducing the numbers of animals in the system. I can't justify it to myself to eat meat the way things are currently. It's not a "set-in-stone" position. If I could find a suitable supplier of extensively-reared animals, slaughtered humanely, I would happily eat meat on occasion. My in-laws keep poultry and from time-to-time these end up in the pot. I know how they've been treated from beginning to end so my conscience can deal with that.

I don't expect everyone to become vegetarian. I just wish people would give more consideration to how their food is produced.

Re: surgical training

Mark Hedberg — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:19:30 GMT

Well, humans are omnivores, so they're designed to eat either/both meat and veg. I certainly agree that moderation in all things is sensible (red meat and fatty foods too frequently is obviously overboard!)

Certainly humans CAN get along reasonably well without meat, but i've known enough anemic vegetarians to know that few of them do it correctly. (Vegetarians are not natually snow white, and no, they're not constantly tired from overwork; they're suffering from protein deficiency and b vitamin deficiency because they eat refined white bread, crisps, fries, veggie pizzas. They avoid whole grains, legumes, and the tasty yummy veggies. They hate unprocessed foods because the only way they've seen veggies is boiled to death and slapped on a plate.)

Please note, my wife is a vegetarian, and she is amazing with steaming, blanching, baking, spicing, and generally making veggies interesting and tasty! I'm also aware that the above does not describe all vegetarians; but I do see rather a lot of this type!

Re: surgical training

Gillian Mostyn — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:16:09 GMT

So if turkeys were not bred for us to eat at Christmas, again I ask, what would become of them and their welfare standards?

I know vegetarians will say it doesn't matter as long as humans aren't involved, but what proportion of animals that are not bred for meat suffer pain and distress, especially on their death? I struggle to see how everyone becoming vegetarian would lead to some kind of animal utopia....????

Re: surgical training

KMurphy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:50:21 GMT

[quote user="Mark Hedberg"]Blame the public for wanting to be able to afford food?[/quote]

No, blame the public for wanting cheap meat and a lot of it.

There is no need to eat meat at all, certainly no need to eat meat daily and absolutely no need to be eating meat 2-3 times daily. Human life is easily sustainable without it and it should be regarded as more of a luxury item than a basic need. The clamour for cheap meat has undoubtedly led to the rise in intensive production systems, which are designed to maximise production for minimal cost/input. This reduction in costs and increase in animal numbers is only of detriment to animal welfare. Most of the large animal diseases I can think of from my student days are diseases of intensification, although admittedly a lot of them are dairy cow diseases (I spent more time as a student with dairy vets). If people were satisfied to treat meat as something to be enjoyed less frequently and to pay a bit more for it, we would need fewer animals overall, systems could be more extensive and welfare would improve. There is also the argument that meat production is actually quite an inefficient conversion of energy and that far greater numbers of people worldwide could be fed by using the crops and land that go into animal production for human food production instead.

I lapsed in my vegetarianism for a few years but a couple of years ago I started asking myself some difficult questions and couldn't satisfactorily answer them, which resulted in my becoming vegetarian again. I haven't quite managed veganism, but I am getting there slowly because I acknowledge the dairy industry probably has more welfare issues than the beef industry. The real issue for me, ultimately, was the slaughter of animals. It is often not done as correctly as it might be. Searching for a Christmas goose/turkey (for in-laws) has proved enlightening. I found this report: http://www.ciwf.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/t/1_the_welfare_of_turkeys_at_slaughter_1997.pdf

I know it may not matter to some but it states that 0.1% of turkeys enter the scalding bath still alive and that equates to 35000 turkeys. That matters to me. Even if they're not all conscious, some will be and what level is "acceptable"? I haven't looked too hard for a similar report on cattle/pig slaughter but I'm sure that it's not foolproof either and, again, what level is acceptable? I couldn't reconcile this, especially given what I do for a living, and so won't eat meat on most occasions now.

Sorry, I know this is going off on a bit of a tangent but I wish people would think more about this!

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:06:57 GMT

My point is the public could afford food 50 years ago although it's relative cost was far higher-and housing-it's all the other things many people couldn't afford-but now regard as necessities

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:02:45 GMT

Food prices are unrealistically low if animal welfare standards are going to be improved The public now demand luxuries as necessities-holidays/cars/televisions/entertainment/alcohol-and animal welfare suffers

Wynne

Re: surgical training

Mark Hedberg — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 10:11:52 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

Blame the public for wanting cheap food

[/quote]

Blame the public for wanting to be able to afford food? When rents start at £500 for a bad joke of a flat, and utilities prices are up again this year, fuel prices £1.35/L and insurance rates rising? If my food bills double, I'm going to be in trouble, and I doubt very many people are different!