Cavemen in the Garden of Eden

CAVEMEN IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
A Natural and Human History of Man and His Farm Animals

By F. Bailey Norwood
Oklahoma State University
(Still in editing phase...comments are welcome)

There are two stories about the history of humans: the natural history and the mythical history. Only the natural history is true, but both have a powerful influence on how we raise animals for food. According to the Old Testament, the human story begins in the Garden of Eden, which was a vegan paradise. Christians today place few limits on meat consumption, and generally place little emphasis on the well-being of farm animals (at least, compared to Buddhists and Hindu), but God originally meant for them to eat plants only.

"And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb."
--Genesis 1:30

"This should be interpreted to mean: every green herb and nothing else."
--Jean Soler, Food: A Culinary History¹

This garden was presumably a wonderful place to live, but unfortunately the ruse of a talking snake ruined everything. After biting into an apple God told them not to eat, humans were banished from the garden. God may have held this same grudge against humans for, well, the Bible does not tell us, but humans have held no such grudge. Respecting God's original intention for humans and the earth (or perhaps out of fear), certain human cultures have patterned their eating habits according to how the Garden of Eden was originally designed. An example is the banning of pork from the Jewish dinner table.

Other cultures possessed religious beliefs where the earth was neither created nor will it be destroyed. Earth and its living guests have lived for eternity and will continue for eternity, being reincarnated infinite times into different species, according to how the previous life was lived. For these cultures, such as the Jainists, Buddhists, and Hindus, killing and eating an animal may be the same as killing and eating their ancestor. Understandably, these cultures are less enthusiastic about meat consumption, and place greater emphasis on treating animals well. In some of the communes that Mahatma Gandhi (the skinny Gandhi from India that you know) constructed to produce a better life for Indians, individuals were given certain duties to fulfill, and one of these was cow protection work. The cow was deified in India, and they abstained from eating of cow flesh, but they did consume dairy products from cows and used oxen for labor. Gandhi described cow protection work as, "cattle-breeding, improvement of the stock, humane treatment of the bullocks, formation of model dairies, etc." When visiting one of the dairies at a commune, Gandhi lamented, "the so-called Hindu still cruelly belabors the poor animal and disgraces his religion."²

Humans are influenced not only by their religions, but the true manner in which man biologically evolved into humans and culturally evolved into farmers with complex societes. Historians who study early man conclude, "human beings were always omnivores: to one degree or another, they always ate both animals vegetables."³ If humans did begin in the Garden of Eden, God must have been angry not just at the apples they ate, but the animals they ate also! The first humans would not have questioned the ethics of meat eating. Constantly vulnerable to starvation, never would have they done anything to restrict their ability to find food. As we have seen, their more complex societies did just that, leading food historians to write, "for 12,000 years there has been a steady undercurrent of antagonism between vegetarians and meat-eaters."⁴

Meat-eaters and vegans certainly are antagonistic today. Animal advocacy groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have become well-funded, powerful, and ambitious groups. PETA regularly goes into livestock farms undercover, documenting nauseating videos of animal abuse. Meet Your Meat available at YouTube.com is the most famous. HSUS has led efforts to ban certain types of cages used at a majority of egg and hog farms in select states from Florida to Colorado to California. If PETA and HSUS could rule the world, everyone would be vegan. That, they contend, is the only way to eliminate the suffering of farm animals.

Yet HSUS and PETA represent only a small fraction of the U.S. population. Vegans comprise less than 1% of Americans (vegetarians less than 3%). The remainder of Americans are enthusiastic consumers of meat, eggs, and dairy products. Will animal rights activists convince the majority that veganism is the only way to an ethical life? It sounds absurd to imagine a day where Chilis does not serve steak fajitas, The Huddle House does not serve scrambled eggs, and Ben & Jerry's make their ice cream from soymilk. It is true that humans no longer need animal products to meet their nutritional needs. The versatile soybean provides the proteins humans typically rely on meat to provide, and the only nutrient lacking in a vegan diet, Vitamin B12, is easily obtained through vitamin supplements. Yet, humans are naturally farmers, and natural meat-eaters.

To understand the farm animal welfare issue, it is useful to first explore the history of man, pigs, and peas. This essay does not take a stand on the farm animal welfare issue, nor does it attempt to critique the writings of others. The purpose of this writing is to explore the history of humans and their beasts, all in an attempt to better understand who we are -- and by "we" I mean humans and our livestock.

Down From The Trees

Humans take care of dairy cattle, making sure they are provided with shelter, food, water, health care, and other amenities. In return, the farmer takes milk for her consumption. It is a fruitful relationship with obvious benefits for both. The modern dairy cow would surely perish without the farmer's care, and human babies depend upon their nutritious milk for strong growth. The cow and human have been together for so long it is hard to imagine their lives apart from one anoter.

In fact, the benefits of such partnerships are so clear that a species far less intelligient than man has also learned, nay, evolved to farm. The ant species Dolichoderus cuspidatus has evolved to become a skilled animal farmer, living much like the present-day nomadic herders in Mongolia. The ant's livestock is a mealybug of the genus Malaicoccus. The mealybugs feed on the sap and leaves from trees, and each day the ants carry the mealybugs from the ant nest to a feeding location, which may be up to 20 meters away from the nest. As the mealybugs eat, they emit honeydew droplets which are harvested by the ants and serves as their sole food source. One nest may contain a single queen, 10,000 worker ants, 4,000 larvae and pupae, and more than 5,000 mealybugs. When the nest is disturbed, the ants safely carry their mealybugs to safety. While being carried, the mealybugs even caress the heads of the ants with their antennae, otherwise remaining still. the ants are aggressive and will fight to the death any species that seeks to prey upon the mealybug. At no point do the ants kill the mealybugs for meat.⁵

It is a remarkable partnership, one which demonstrates the potential mutual benefits of two species living together and working in each other's interest. This symbiotic relationship did not emerge out of a brilliant idea on the part of the ants, but out of millions of years of evolution. But then, animal agriculture was a partnership that also evolved. Eating meat is as natural an act to man as walking on two feet. While prehistoric man has wear patterns on their teeth that suggests a diet consisting largely of vegetation and grain, meat was a vital component of his diet and any absence of meat is more suggestive of a difficulty in obtaining meat than a lack of interest in meat. In fact, man is not the only meat eating primate. Chimpanzees hunt smaller monkeys and prey, sometimes consuming 200 grams of meat in one day. Of course, Chimpanzees will also conduct small-scale genocides. Saying our ancestors performed an act is not a way of justifying that act, but to understand ourselves we must understand these ancestors, and that is our objective here.

For some reason, probably changes in the climate, apes in some areas were forced out of their trees to search for food on the ground. These changes favored a number of genetic changes in the ape's body, such as the ability to walk on two feet. On the ground the ape had to constantly scout for predators, and being nimble on two feet made this easier. So the apes evolved, and about 2 million years ago an ape named Homo erectus appeared, looking much like you and I. This ape hunted, lived in caves, and even mastered fire. This homo erectus was not human though. Human, or homo sapien, arrived around 200,000 B.C. While far smarter than than that ant we discussed earlier, the idea of obtaining meat from any means other than hunting or scavenging was unlikely to cross her mind.⁴

Homo sapiens journeyed from Africa to populate the world. So did other species of human-like apes, such as the Neanderthal. Yet these other human-like apes disappeared for some reason, perhaps their inability to compete with the large and nimble mind of humans. For many thousands of years humans fed themselves through hunting, gathering, and scavenging -- no agriculture yet. While food was eaten raw at first, given that fire was utilized by intelligient apes long before evolution finalized man and woman, cooking likely predates man. Meat was at first roasted; anyone who has roasted marshmellows knows how simple roasting can be. Boiling, however, preserves much of the essential fat and better tenderizes what was certainly tough meat. The clear benefits to boiling suggest it may have been used even before the pot was invented. Some tribes may have used turtle shells. Many may have simply used a proven method of placing the meat and water into the animal's stomach and hanging the stomach and its contents over the fire to cook. Leather was experimented with until it could substitute for the animal stomachs around 13,000 B.C, and then clay pots. ⁴

As cooking improved so did meat storage. Our observant ancestors probably noticed how the meat of dead animals preserved well during cold winters, and learned to bury meat under ice. Humans have lived most of their existence in the middle and late Paleolithic age, which began before humans existed and ended in 10,000 B.C. Still in the early stone age, man and woman had already learned to dry and smoke meat. Though intellectually advanced, the human still faced the same challenges to survive. They still foraged for food like the wild deer and stalked prey like the lion. In a way, they were still less sophisticated than the ant colony who raises their own feed.

A Seed is Planted

Enter the Neolithic Revolution, when humans slowly, with trepidation, assumed the role of a farmer. Before, when human societies are best described as hunter-gatherers, women generally assumed the role of the seed gatherer, though men likely gathered seed while returning from a hunt or encountering a plentiful gathering of wild seeds during a hunt. As women brought seeds from the fields to areas close to their cave or hut, they would notice the plant growing close to where the seeds are kept. They would also see the plants growing in the refuse piles, emerging from the seeds that were not digested. Plants can emerge from seeds without sunlight, though they will not live long. When they began sprouting inside the shelters, the inhabitants would have surmised that something unnatural was going on. More than a few humans would have had the "aha" moment where they realized that a seed placed in the ground would yield a plant in time. Farming soon evolves from this realization.

Those delicious cowpeas, snow peas, and sweet peas on our dinner plate bear almost no resemblance to their ancestors from whom they were domesticated. Between 12,000 and 15,000 B.C. the wolf was domesticated, leading to the wide variety of dogs such as Bulldogs, Shitzus, Chihuahua, Poodles, and Great Danes. Similarly, a wild pea or several peas were discovered, studied, nurtured, and altered through the actions of hunters and later farmers to produce the large and delicious assortment of peas we have today. The same is said of every other crop and vegetable. The ancestor of corn produced a husk no longer than your thumb. Today those husks are as long as your elbow to your wrist.

This picture shows the evolution of corn from the wild variety called Teosinte, to a larger corn with more seeds, to modern-day domesticated corn on the far right. Similarly, wild animals would be domesticated and genetically altered from their original wild form.

Source: Gewin, Virginia. 2003. "Genetically Modified Corn - Environmental Benefits and Risks." PLOS Biology. 1(1):e8.

To identify the birthdate of agriculture we must first define what me mean by agriculture, and this definition usually concerns domestication. When stone age humans learned that they could plant a seed, and from that seed earn many more seeds from the plant that grew, they embarked upon a process of plant domestication. Imagine the following fictional, but plausible scenario. A clan of humans provide a portion of their nutrients from hunting a wild goat. Humans are social creatures, and like the lion tribe, hunted in groups. One strategy may be to chase the goats into a valley or gorge with only one entry and exit, cornering the animal and making an easy kill. Before making their kill, they decide to block the exit so that they goats cannot leave. The clan could then return later and make a new kill with little work. They valley may have contained a water source and enough forage so that the goats could survive in the valley.

The clan continually returns for more meat, and if the herd was large enough, it may have been in the clan's interest to remain in the valley continually to prevent other predators from taking their goats. What we have now is something that resembles a farm, where goats are kept in pastures and contained by fences. This valley was not agriculture though. This was just easy hunting. The goat, at this point, was not domesticated because the humans did not directly influence the genetic makeup of the goat.

Continuing with this story, over time the goats would become accustomed to the humans. Clansmen would be able to peel off and slaughter goats for meat without chasing the entire herd. The humans would also begin to determine which goats to slaughter and which to let live using a different decision making process than used on the hunt. On the hunt, you kill whatever you can. In this valley, not all of the goats would have the same disposition. Some would be skiddish and wary of humans. Others would feel more comfortable in the presence of humans. The former would graze and sleep far from the clan, while the later would remain close to the clan. The former would be more likely to be killed by predators, and the latter would be more likely to breed and produce future breeding offspring for the humans. Humans would prefer to breed the goats who are comfortable around humans, as they would be more difficult to manage. This goat would be spared from harvest for the present, to produce offspring with her similar disposition. Consequently, over the years, the gene pool of the goat herd would not be determined by natural selection, but human selection.

Consider another story. Have you ever notice how most large salt containers indicate on the label that they are fortified with iodine? The reason is that small amounts of iodine are necessary for human nutrition, but only 150 micrograms per day is needed. Iodine is not needed every day, but some small amounts periodically are necessary. As long as the iodine intake averaged across all days of each month average out to about 150 micrograms, there will be no health problems attributable to iodine consumption. Iodine is not present in most foods, it must be added. But who is going to remember to seek out small sources of iodine and remember to add it to food periodically? We could add it to the vitamins people take, but not everyone needs or takes vitamins. The solution is to add small amounts of iodine to food items that are consumed regularly and in small amounts (because there is such a thing as too much iodine). Salt fills these requirements perfectly.

Much like iodine, certain minerals are necessary for health, are only needed in small amounts, and are difficult to find in the wild. This is true for humans and animals. Wild animals periodically return to minerals deposits, casually called salt licks, which are rocky or soily materials containing necessary items like sodium, calcium, iron, and zinc. Humans, smart as they are, know animals will always return to these areas, and would be at the salt licks waiting, much like the crocodiles wait for the river crossing of wildebeest.

While there is only one river the wildebeest can cross on their migratory route, there were probably several salt lick areas. The humans would want to utilize these sites for a kill, but not make it so tramatic that the animals do not return. Imagine this: humans wait for the herd of animals at the salt licks. When they come, the humans are not hiding, but not an obvious threat either. The animals are allowed to lick the mineral deposits. The stronger ones will surely lick first. As the stronger ones finish they leave, allowing the weaker to have access. As this continues, there will eventually be a small group finishing, which is when the humans slowly encircle the animals and make their kills. The others animals have left, and thus are either not witness to the kill, or so used to seeing the older, more sickly animals be picked apart from the herd by other predators that it is not abnormal.

Because these kills are made in such a calm manner, the animals soon come back. Remember, just because one or a few animals are killed does not mean the salt licks would be a hostile site. This is the wild, and these are wild animals that were certainly followed constantly by predators, just as wildebeests, water buffalo, elk, and zebra are followed throughout their life by lion packs. The animals become increasingly comfortable in the presence of humans at the same time they are being harvested by humans. Perhaps later humans learned to become quasi-shepherds, maintaining close relations with the animals, perhaps even protecting them from attacks from other animals, while calmly harvesting easy kills. Perhaps baby animals were captured at these salt lick encounters.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... A number of stories could be told. If there were few water holes, the previous story could be retold replacing the salt licks with water holes. Some human populations were sizable, and had latrines where they would excrement, which coincidentally contained seeds that were not digested well. Many animals, most notably the wild hog, might be interested in eating such excrement. It is disgusting, but modern-day pigs retain this trait, and only until recently were utilized by farmers to consume the food that went undigested by their cattle. A 1928 livestock production manually bluntly asserts, "corn salvaged from cattle droppings is clear gain. Experimental results show that for every bushel of corn fed to cattle, enough feed is recovered by swine following them to produce one to two pounds of pork."⁶ It is very possible that the pig was domesticated in such a matter. Since their diet closely resembles that of humans, they might wait at the latrines or the trash dump to finish the remains of humans' meals. As they become increasingly comfortable in the presence of humans, actions to begin domesticating them would unfold.

Other stories could be told to articulate the means by which humans directly alter the genetic makeup of his animals. Most all male animals need to be castrated to be dealt with safely (does this imply something about males in general?). By castrating or quickly harvesting aggressive males, more gentle males are allowed to breed who would never win battles for mates in the wild. Larger animals are harvested for consumption faster, because they provide more meat, but also because the smaller animals of a species are more likely to survive harsh times, and therefore make more reliable breeding investments. As a result, the captive animals which are allowed to breed are smaller, more docile, and less shy. Their offspring will acquire these traits as well.

By explicitly deciding which animals to harvest before their breeding age and which animals to be allowed to breed, humans exerted a significant influence on the genetic makeup of the animal. This is what is referred to as domestication. Even the mealyworm, farmed by the ant, underwent a form of domestication. The genetic makeup of the mealyworm is completely different than their "wild" counterparts. The mealyworm with genetic traits that strengthened the synergies of the ant-worm relationship were more likely so survive and breed. This genetic drift was undoubtedly influenced by the ants themselves, such as the size of mealyworm the ants preferred to carry. The ant directly impacted the genetic profile of the mealyworm, essentially, in a sense domesticating the worm.⁷

However plausible the stories about how humans domesticated animals seem, the exact mechanism by which animals were domesticated is and will forever be unknown. Multiple stories are plausible, and different animals may have undergone domestication by different means. Perhaps a mother sheep was killed and her litter raised by the human predators, and the humans allowed their pet sheep to breed with the wild sheep, with their siblings, or with other sheep that were adopted. This may have been the story for sheep, but not cattle. The reader must be comfortable with educated guesses to enjoy the history of domesticated livestock. There are many unknowns. What we do know is that domestication occurred, with monumental consequences for the rest of human history.

In different regions, on different dates, different animals were domesticated. Sheep and goat were domesticated in southwest Asia in 9,000 B.C. or ealier. Sheep herders are known to have tended their herds in modern day Iraq and Romania during this time. About 2,000 years later (or maybe at the same time, the science behind such datings are inexact) the pig was domesticated in China. Pigs are prolific breeders, can eat the same foods as humans, and the breeds in ancient times were small. In 6,000 B.C. pigs are thought to have dwelled in every Chinese household's hut, eating the household scraps and, unless reserved for breeding, slaughtered before the age of one year. The pig's contribution to nourishment was so essential that the Chinese word for "meat" and "pork" are and remain synonymous. A world away, the pig was also domesticated independently in South America, but not until 3,500 B.C. ^4,7,8,9

At least as early as 7,000 B.C., an animal called an auroch (illustration from 1556 provided below) was domesticated in the Indus Valley, modern day India and Pakistan, evolving over time under humans' guide to become the modern-day cow. The wild auroch went on to live for thousands of years, until the last auroch met its fate in the Netherlands, around 600 AD.¹⁰ Turkeys were domesticed in Central America about 3,500 B.C. Less is known about when the chicken was domesticated, but it was probably earlier than 3,000, and occurred when ancient humans in Asia began carrying for and breeding wild fowl. The dog was the first domesticated animal, coming into human's care before 10,000 B.C., and while their services as good smeller and fast runner were useful to humans, their meat also helped provide nourishment. Even a species of fish, carp, was farmed before the B.C. era gave way to A.D., as well as horses, camels, and others.^4,9

While the estimated dates of domestication are interesting, it is important to remain dubious specific dates. The year in which the domestication of any particular plant or animal differs according to the source. Moreover, given the difficulty of such estimates, even the best prediction is likely to be wrong by at least 1,000 years. So view the dates as rough approximations, and know that even if the estimate is off by a couple thousand years, it makes little difference to the story of people, pigs, and peas.


Above: 1556 Illustration of the Auroch. Below: Examples of modern cattle. Angus cow and mother (left) and Brahma calf (right). There are numerous different breeds of color, consisting of many colors, sizes, and shapes. All were likely derived from the domestication of the Aurochs, and centuries of selecting which cattle to breed according to the needs of the humans and the climate the cattle were raised. All images made available by Wikipedia Commons Please support Wikipedia Commons and donate your photos to be used freely by the public..

Animal domestication did not just emerge from the groups of humans clever enough to seek an alternative to hunting. As historians note, "humans are not born farmers."¹¹ Just the right animal had to be available at just the right place and time. Almost every ruminant has been held captive by humans at some point,^12,13 but only a few of those ruminants went on to become domesticated livestock. Not every animal can be domesticated. In his fascinating book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond outlines the traits necessary for successful animal domestication on a large scale. They must be comfortable living in herds, grow quickly, be herbicores (omnivores can be acceptable), breed in captivity, be relatively docile and gregarious, have a hierarchical social structure, and have overlapping ranges with herds of the same species. The reasons for these traits are obvious, once you think about it. Domesticated animals are generally kept in groups, confined closely together and to humans, and must be dominated by humans. To thrive in groups they must be able to breed in groups, which cheetahs cannot. Carnivores would be too expensive to feed; they need meat while herbivores need grass. How inefficient it would be to hunt meat to feed it to an animal, or to raise one animal for the purposes of butchering its meat and feeding it to another animal. The horse was domesticated while the zebra was not; the zebra is horribly ill-tempered.⁹

A wild animal must possess all of these traits to have the potential for domestication. Only a few did, and their locations were scattered across the world. Asia was blessed with animals that would become the most important livestock: sheep, goat, pig, horse, cow, chicken, and donkey. Because Europe is connected to Asia by land, this made it easy for these livestock to travel and allow the Europeans to farm animals also. The Americas had only llamas, guinea pigs, dogs, and turkeys. Consequently, ancient humans in the Americas did not farm animals on a scale even close to those in Europe and Asia.^4,9 The fortuitious location of these animals had important implications for the course of human history. All of man's major diseases originated in his livestock. When Europeans sought to conquer land in America, it was not their bullets that gave them the winning advantage over the indigenous cultures, it was the smallpox and other diseases. When Cortes landed in present-day Mexico in 1519, he was unable to conquer the Aztecs. Then a slave arrived in Mexico from Cuba infected with smallpox, killing almost half of the Aztecs, making Cortes' second assault much easier and successful. Smallpox was a disease that evolved from a pathogen that infected cattle. With humans' daily encounters with cattle they would be immune to smallpox but the Aztecs would not. When discussing Europeans ventures into the New World, a historian states, "Far more Native Americans died in bed from Eurasian germs than on the battlefield from European guns and swords."⁹

Agriculture -- the domestication of plants and animals -- arose independently is nine different regions, and while some societies remained in their hunting and gathering ways, others adopted this new way of life. These agricultural societies quickly experimented with their plants and animals, discovering new ways of managing their biological assets to improve their lot. They quickly learned that the milk produced by livestock for their young was tasty and nutritious. Consider the efficiency of milk.. The animal eats grass and turns it into a delicious and highly nutritious beverage, without the human having to kill the animal, allowing the human to return each day for more. Without refrigeration, the milk was stored in animal stomachs which contained natural enzymes and bacteria, and was often carried where the fluid sloshed in these enzymes and bacteria. Cheese, yogurt, and butter naturally formed. While some of these dairy products were dangerous to consume, they found some that were not. A form of cheese was even eaten before poverty used used in some regions.⁴

A photographic reproduction from egyption hieroglyptic painting, showing a domesticated cow being milked.

It is tempting to think that this began a revolution, where humans within a few decades mastered the art of farming and never looked back on their seed gathering days. This is not the case though. Agricultural societies competed with hunter-gatherer societies, many of which existed until modern times. We are quick to conclude that the life of a farmer is more pleasant than a hunter-gatherer, but this is not always the case. When wild edible plants abound, it is easier to just snatch its fruits than plant your own seed and nurture the seedling to fruition. While hunting may seem like hard work, maintaining livestock can also be strenuous; ask anyone who has spent time building fences or herding sheep. Hunter-gatherers maintained a strong existence until recently, and some exist still. The Bushmen of the Kalahari are an example. When a researcher asked them why they do not become farmers, they replied, "Why should we plant, when there are so many mongomongo nuts in the world?"¹³

The inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, in the Bay of Bengal, still thrive as hunter-gatherers and avoid contact with modern people. They have kept to themselves for some time; according to their genetic profile, they have remained isolated for 60,000 years! Though agriculture has become the preferred method of food provision for most humans, and the next section articulates the benefits of agriculture, when agriculture was a nascent food production system, many socieites thought its disadvantages were to large, and remained hunter-gatherers. Agricultural societies' reliance on a smaller subset of food led to vitamin deficiencies and in some cases a general decline in health. In the first stages of agriculture, farmers were less healthy than their hunter-gatherer counterparts. Even when they had access to the same amount of calories, those calories contained less protein and fat, and as mentioned above, vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The first farmers were shorter, more fragile bones, less teeth, and suffered more diseases as the diseases that plagued their livestock began attacking the livestock owners.¹⁴

All this is only to say that agriculture had its advantages and disadvantages. Our world today is glaring proof that agriculture is ultimately more desirable, or at least, that agricultural societies tend to conquer and dominate hunter-gatherers.. Let the Bushmen of Africa and the North Sentinel Islanders enjoy their gathering and hunting. We farm instead; the reasons why are discussed below.

WHY WE FARM

While agricultural and non-agricultural ways of living have competed with each other throughout most of history, from around 8,000 B.C. until today agricultural has steadily increased in acceptance. Humans may have been forced to become farmers. Climatic changes may have created water shortages, forcing people to live closer to water, and hence in more densely populated areas.¹³ Successful hunting-gatherer clans require large amounts of land per person. Once individuals are forced onto smaller areas of land, they must extract a greater amount of nutrition from each acre, and that is where agriculture provides a clear advantage over the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

This essay focuses on livestock, but in reviewing history we must pay some homage to the importance of domesticated plants -- what we call crops. Certain plants that lived in an arid climate evolved to produce a storable seed, one that could last long spells of dryness and spring to live at the touch of water. This provided human with something few animals are able to obtain: storable food. The ability to gather large amounts of grain at harvest and steadily draw from that harvest the entire year was truly a blessing. As they learned to plant these seeds, and place a priority on planting seeds from plants with the desired genetic traits (of course, they couldn't see the genes, only the output from the genes), this led to plant domestication and a host of improvements to the plant.

As we will see shortly, the domestication of the plant has many synergies with the domestication of the animal. Shortly after the cattle was domesticated they were employed in the pulling of the plow. Livestock were valued for their ability to fertilize fields with their manure. Today, chickens and hogs are fed a diet almost exclusively made of corn and soybeans. All cattle are fed corn for several months before slaughter, partially because it improves the taste beef. Our modern livestock system depends heavily on our modern cropping system. Crop and livestock farming were developed at the same time, and continued alongside each other, adding value to one another.

Back to livestock. We previously told a story of how our fictitious clan found it was easier to raise animals than hunt animals. As animals became domeesticated and therefore easier to manage, the advantages to livestock increased. The obvious advantage of livestock over hunting is that is has the possibility of providing greater amounts of meat for equal amounts of effort. Another benefit of livestock farming over hunting is meat storage. Preserving meat was difficult in 8,000 B.C., and preserving it wrong is deadly. Remember that some humans obtained much of their meat from large hunts of migratory animals, such as the Indians hunting the buffalo or more ancient humans hunted the mammoth. These hunts were sometimes infrequent, but yielded much meat, more meat than the humans could possibly eat before it went bad. If this meat could be stored, then hunting may have been more efficient than raising animals. After running a few mammoths off a cliff, the mammoth meat might provide their annual meat needs. Yet while they had some methods of preserving meat (e.g. drying) it was imperfect, and as stated before, dangerous. There is no better way of preserving meat that by keeping the animal alive, close, and convenient to harvest at any time -- another advantage of farming over hunting.

To many ancient societies (and some poorer societies today), domesticated cattle was more important for labor than it was for milk and meat. Many farming communities were located near water areas where they utilized natural and manmade mechanisms for irrigating and fertilizing crops. A prime example were the ancient Egyptians who would watch the Nile river flood between July and November, after which they would sow seeds where the water receded, now moist with water and rich with nutrients brought from upstream. These lands were open and generally treeless, making it easy for a plow to tear through the soil. It was in these type of areas where humans taught cattle how cattle how to pull a plow (the first type of plows was called an ard). There was a preference for larger stronger cattle, not necessary cows who provide lots of milk and meat. Consequently, today the type of cow used for labor is referred to as oxen. As time progressed other animals were strapped to the plow, including the ass and the horse, and the animal was utilized for labor in other areas, such as making flour and providing power for irrigation machines. The plow we pull behind a tractor is quite similar to the plow that was pulled by the cow thousands of years earlier. It all began with man and his cow.^7,13

Egyptian painting showing oxen pulling a plow. Date of painting is estimated
to be 1,200 B.C.

Another contribution of livestock was its utilization in fertilizing the soil. While some planted seeds near the river banks, others slashed and burned forests to provide cropland. With their primitive tools they were not able to remove the tree trunks or some of the vegetation, not to mention the tree roots. Consequently, this area was ill suited for the animal-drawn plow; the land was turned by hand instead. Without the river floods to fertilize the land, the cleared forests had to be abandoned after a few years due to depleted nutrients, where it would return to forest and be slashed and burned fifty years later for another round of crops.

Eventually there were no more forests to be feasibly cleared and farmed. The land was converted from forests to three types of land: the saltus, ager, and silva. The saltas were former forests that existed on hilly areas subject to erosion. These lands could no longer be cultivated, but due to previous cultivations were to infertile for the forests to return. They became hills only nourishing enough for grasses, shrubs, and some small trees. The ager referred to land in the valleys that received erosion from the saltus and was consequently more fertile. It was less susceptible to erosion, and held rainfall better. The ager was the prime cropland. The silva were areas that were not feasible for slash and burning and the subsequent cultivation. Some were too hilly, some were too high, and some were swamps. While they would be exploited for wood, the silva were largely unmolested and left in their native form.

After years of harvests the ager would become less fertile, and in need of care. Humans learned to refertilize the ager by grazing their animals on the saltus during the day and housing them on the ager at night, where there excrement from foraging would be transported to the ager, their cropland. This essentially transports the few nutrients that existed on the saltus down to the ager, providing enough fertilization until more advanced technologies evolved. Humans were smart in how they managed the livestock for fertilizer. The goal was to place as many cattle, sheep, and goats on the saltus as possible, bringing the animals down to the ager at night where they would excrement on the ager, excrement which contained nutrients from the saltus. The saltus grew better during certain seasons, so its carrying capacity had to be varied throughout the year. This was attained by managing the births of the cattle so that the saltus received cattle when they were in most need of feed at the same time the saltus had the most feed to offer. Moreover, during the seasons when the saltus was less productive surplus cattle would be sent to other areas to forage. Today, we fertilize our land by converting the nitrogen from the atmosphere to a form of nitrogen the plants can consume, and mining minerals from deep within the earth to spread upon the fields. At the dawn of agricultural societies, it was livestock that often fulfilled this important role.⁷ Our ability to feed over six billion people is largely dependent on our ability to develop inexpensive commercial fertilizers; and it all began with man and his cow.

Agriculture allowed humans to live in more densely populated areas, forming large and complex societies. Our great wealth today is attributable to our ability to engage in mutually beneficial trade with each other. Think about it, how much of the goods and services that you consume do you produce? Virtually everything you consume was produced by other people, and you were given the money to purchase those items by selling something, probably your labor. You and everyone else spend each day engaging in fruitful trade. If you had to consume only things that you produced, you would be quite poor. So were our ancestors at the dawn of agriculture.

In the years 8,000 - 2,000 B.C., some humans lived in areas suitable for grain production and others suitable for livestock production. Some humans were naturally more talented in grain production, others in livestock production. Remember the discussion of how livestock were managed on the saltus and the ager, and remember how we mentioned that at times there were a surplus of cattle that had to be sent elsewhere to graze during the less productive seasons? That excess would largely had been handled through trade. Imagine one person, Abel, who specializes in livestock, and another, Cain, who concentrates on crops but maintains some livestock as well. Cain needs more livestock than he owns to graze the saltus during the productive seasons to transport its nutrients down to the ager. What Cain would do is to engage in trade with Abel. Abel would bring a portion of his livestock to Cain during the productive seasons and take them back home when those seasons were over. Abel receives free grazing, and Cain's fields are fertilized. The free grazing may be enough compensation for Abel, or Abel may demand a portion of Cain's grains in return. Either way, both are made better off by the trade.

One can easily imagine all the other opportunities for trade that living in contact with other humans can provide. Ards were the first type of plow. Like most things, the more one concentrates on something the more efficient one becomes. Humans who specialize in making ards exclusively will produce better ards at less expensive than someone who only has to make an ard every two years. It is therefore in everyone's advantage if one person produces ards exclusively for a group of farmers, and those farmers compensate the ard maker by giving them a portion of their harvest. Humans are a bartering animal, a social animal. This trait has served us well, and agriculture gave humans their first opportunity to trade on a large scale.

This point is worth repeating: agriculture allowed humans to live in densely populated areas and in close contact with one another, making it more convenient to engage in trade. This is an often overlooked benefit of agriculture. Trade was important long before agriculture; some even think the penchant to trade is one of the reasons humans thrived and Neanderthals perished. In fact, some scientists are beginning to think that humans' penchant for trade was equally or more important than technological discoveries in the adoption of agriculture.¹⁵

Agriculture became increasingly popular in the late B.C. era, allowing humans to live close to one another and form tight, complex social bonds. It was adopted by some because it represented a better life. It was adopted by others because they were being out-competed by the farmers and had no choice but to either farm or perish. In many areas, agricultural societies were able to form large armies that easily overtook less organized hunter-gatherer groups. Farming produced a surplus of food which could be used to feed soldiers, but probably more important is the large, cohesive social units that agriculture permitted.

Agriculture expanded, in many areas slowly, but the expansion did not cease until there were no more lands to cover. Agricultural methods were more easily expanded eastward and westward, on the same latitude. The reason is that specific plants and animals that were domesticated in one area could not easily be raised in an area that is significantly hotter or colder, preventing their expansion northward and southward. Seeds from grains raised in modern-day Iraq could not be transported to Siberia and successfully cultivated. Hogs domesticated in Asia would likely suffer greatly if they were transported to the desert regions of Africa; pigs cannot sweat, so they need ample water to wallow in when temperatures are hot.

However, if seeds and animals moved slowly northward or southward, the plants and animals could adapt. Animals that performed better under slighly colder conditions would live to breed, and their offspring would fare better as they headed further North. If moved Northward slowly, the animals' genetic composition would lead to thicker hair, more fat, and other features, just as they would under natural selection.

Cattle, pigs, and chickens spread rather quickly across Eurasia because much of it lies on roughly the same altitude, and thus similar climates. Llamas were domesticated in South America but never made it to North America, and the corn planted by Native Americans were never adopted by Native Peruvians. It was not the distance between North and South America that was so important but the differences in latitude, producing stark differences in climate.

As livestock did spread across regions their genetic profile altered. All cattle have a common ancestor in the auroch, but branched into two quite different sub-species. The bos taurus cattle have a thick coat, do not have a hump, are fatty, and cannot sweat (see previous picture). These cattle were raised in Europe and formed the more familiar breeds like the angus and holstein (the black and white dairy cows). The bos indicus subspecies originated from India. Under the hot Indian conditions these cattle either developed or retain the ability to sweat, have a thin coat of hair, and are lean. They also have a pronounced hump. These differences are important today. Because the bos taurus cattle are fattier, they taste better; it is the small deposits of fat within the muscle, called marbling, that gives steaks its great taste. This is why fancy restaurants often boast about selling angus beef. The bos indicus cattle are leaner and less tasty. They were also used for labor more than the bos taurus cattle. You will never eat a steak from a bos indicus cow, maybe ground beef. The bos indicus breeds are more robust in hot climates though. To raise cattle that thrive in the heat but are also tasty, cattlemen often breed bos taurus cattle to bos indicus cattle.

Agriculture spread throughout Eurasia; livestock spread throughout Eurasia; both were adopted in isolated pockets elsewhere. It brought about a change in how food was produced, allowing them to feed more people of the same area of land. While the average lifespan did not increase, the world population did, increasing from 3 million people in 10,000 B.C. to 100 million in 3,000 B.C. Agricultural societies were sedentary, allowing them to form alliances of a large number of people. This, and the food surpluses which allowed them to feed permanent soldiers, made it easy for them to conquer land and people. Some hunter-gatherers found they must either adopt the agricultural lifestyle to prevent being conquered.

In short, farming proliferated throughout the world. Just as the farmer human displaced the hunter human, the domesticated animal began grazing the land of their wild ancestors. Side-by-side, man and his livestock built empires. Cattle were beginning to pull plows in 3,000 B.C. As the Nile receeded from the yearly floods, the egyptians threw their seeds on the ground and drove the swine over it to help push the seeds down. ^4,9 Men battled on their horses, and slept in the same house as their pigs. During this agricultural revolution, the animals evolved due to their domestication and human cultures evolved. Side-by-side humans trudged through a difficult and unforgiving world, developing new social norms that would make their communities more successful, and not surprisingly, much of these cultural changes involve livestock.

LIVESTOCK AND CULTURE

It is impossible for livestock not to have a tremendous impact on culture, given that they have provided man with much of his necessities for the last 12,000 years. Some of the cultural impacts are predictable and obvious. Humans are complex creatures though, so it would be natural if livestock impacted culture in complex ways that, in the absence of hindsight, are unpredictable. This has indeed been the case. Humans have the ability to be incredibly cruel and tremendously kind to animals. Our treatment of animals have varied along this continuum, and the decisions regarding treatment of animals depends on the individual's genetic tendencies, but of course, the individual's culture as well.

Most human cultures have elected to treat livestock as commodities. They are machines, whose welfare is only taken into account when it affects their ability to pull a plow or provide food. Animals who are not fed well or are unprotected from harsh weather will pull the plow weakly and provide poor meat and milk, so they are generally fed well and provided protection from the weather. Yet the decision to feed the animal is no different from the decision to put gasoline in your car -- it is a profitable activity. While there were undoubtedly some individuals with a unique empathy for animals, most people of these cultures did not take into account the animals' emotions in their decisions. As Rene Descartes conjectured, the animals were considered machines, and nothing more.

In other cultures, some livestock like the cow rose to the status of Gods. For many readers, the sacred cow of India is a strange thing. The first societies in modern-day India were very probably meat-eaters, who would kill and eat any cow if it was to their advantage. How their culture evolved to worship this cow is not known with certainty, but the story that follows is a best, and probably an accurate, guess. A group of pastoralists referred to as Aryans invaded India. The Aryans were superb producers of dairy products, including a clarified butter that would last for months in hot climates. Their dairy products were enthusastically adopted by the native peoples, and they were soon heavily dependent upon the milk of their cattle. The milk of a fertile cow was far more important than its meat, as indicated by sacred texts that listed a number of food items such as goat and buffalo meat, but only cow meat from barren cows. As dairy products played an increasingly prominent role in their society, the cow was given greater reverance, perhaps in sincere gratitude for the nourishing milk it provides. This, and the Hindu belief in a type of reincarnation where a man may be reborn as a cow and a cow reborn as a man, led to Hindu priests banning the eating of any cow. These rules were relaxed at times, for example, for ritual sacrifice, but the general trend was towards increase protection of the cow.

This 1912 picture was anti-Muslim propaganda and a protest against the meat eating of Muslims. The lion looking monster with the sword represents the Muslim trying to slaughter the cow, but notice the man between the two preventing the slaughter. The title of the work is The Cow With 84 Deities. Hindus believed that eac part of the cow represents a different deity, making the cow a sort of meta-god.

Moreover, as Indians began battling the beef-eating Muslims, cultures placed a greater emphasis on identity, and clung more closely to the cultural features that distinguishes them from their enemies. The sacred cow was a salient difference between Hindu and Muslim, and reinforced the Indian's reverance for the cow.⁴

Sacred cows run free in the streets of India. Who would ask a god to move out of the way?

Followers of the Buddhist and Jainist religions also believed in karma and reincarnation. Living a good life will cause one to be reborn into a higher state. All animals -- humans, cow, pig, and insect -- contain something of a soul. Eat a pig, and you may be eating your great grandmother. Thus, they insist on a a vegetarian diet. Milk from animals or eggs from hens were acceptable by some priests, but most Buddhist and Jainist priests today promote strict veganism. Some even go so far as to make sure insects are not residing in the fruits they are soon to eat, and to abstain garlic because it requires killing the whole plant.

A vegetarian diet greatly restricts the range of potential foods, and in previous centuries, such restrictions could easily be the difference between life and death. It is thus surprising that the vegetarian life was ever accepted in any form -- but it was. Not only accepted, it was tremendously influential. The Jainist priests were so influential that around 100 B.C. Hindu priests also espoused the vegetarian life. And this leads us to where we are today. Three major religions do not condone the eat of animal flesh and at times the milk or eggs from an animal: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

It is unclear to what extent the adoption of vegetarianism and veganism was due to a concern for the animal itself, because they believed the animal could experience suffering, or out of respect for the fact that the animal may have a human soul. Many features of Jainism and Buddhism do seem to bestow respect for the animal itself, regardless of whether it possesses anything resembling a human soul. No doubt many of its followers simply follow the dogmatic rules of religion, possessing little genuine care for the animal. Yet there is also no doubt that being raised in a culture that places a greater emphasis on treating animals kindly will cause the people to possess a more genuine concern for those animals.

In western cultures, livestock were considered little more than property, whose lives' purpose was to provide meat, milk, and eggs for human consumption. Isolated pockets of vegetarianism could be found, such as the vegetarian colony that attempted to establish itself on the wild prairies of modern-day Kansas. Those individuals who abstained from flesh appeared more concerned with the health consequences of flesh eating than reducing animal suffering.¹⁶

Within these societies that equated animal with property, strange customs developed that ironically seem to glorify vegetarianism. The custom of Jews and Muslims abstaining from pork is a prime example. It is a commonly held notion that these religions banned pork eating due to health concerns, namely, trichinosis, which is a parasite that can infect humans if they eat undercooked pork. This is not a commonly held view among historians though. While priests could have banned pork out of these health concerns, it is strange that other cultures did not. This has led historians to favor an alternative explanation, one that you will probably find surprising. It is, however, the best explanation offerred thus far.

The story goes as follows. The Garden of Eden was the ideal life, the rightful home for humans, if they could remain free of sin. In this Garden there were no predators, and there was no meat eating. All were vegetarians: Adam, Eve, the animals, even the snake. Ideally humans would remain vegetarian to retain a semblance of the home God intended for them. In times when lives were short and famine was a season away, relying solely on plants for food seemed not only irresponsible, but impossible. A compromise is to only eat animals that are vegetarian themselves. It is these animals that are, as the religions say, "clean."

Jews prefer to eat only animals that eat plants (herbivores), because they are closer to vegetarian ideal God intended. Animals that are ruminants are all herbivores, so if an animal is a ruminant it must be a herbivore. Ruminants are easy to spot because they chew their cud. After some digestion of the grass has occurred, the animal regurgitates the back into the mouth to be chewed as second time. Ruminants are then chew the grass twice, making them a double-vegetarian of sorts, and extra clean from the priests point of view. This is why Jewish law proscribes only the eating of animals that chew their cud. The hog was deemed unclean because it was an omnivore, it would consume both plants and animals. Because it would consume animals as well as plants, it was deemed unclean and thus should not be eaten.¹ The Islam religion also claims Abraham of the Old Testament as one of its founding ancestors, so for similar reasons they only consume animals that are herbivores.

Another strange social norm is the meat fasts demanded by the Roman Catholic Church. Fasting is common across many religions, but the Roman Catholic Church specifically targeted meat. When the church enforced the food animal ban seriously, its members must abstain from these animal products on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and all the days of Lent. This constituted half the days of the year! Sometimes meat was interpreted to include all animal products, and sometimes it made exceptions, such as fish.

The reasons for the fasts can be found in how diets were associated with social status and personal character in the Middle Ages. Meat was a signal of strength and power. The Noble Class flaunted their vast consumption of meat to signal their superiority over the peasants. They further expressed their superiority by roasting their meats, which allowed much of the meat fat to escape. Peasants, when they had access to meat, boiled the meat to make sure every part of the meat was consumed. Meat was such a strong identifier of status that if a person of power is to be punished, they were often forced to abstain from meat, sometimes for life.

There were three general classes of the Middle Ages: the Nobles, the peasants, and the Church. While it is obvious to readers of history that the church leaders was just as obsessed with power as the Nobles, their strategy for power was very different. Entering the church was supposed to imply that one renounces the world and the quest for power. The monastary demanded humility of its subjects. Humility was the culture it encouraged. Thus, to signal a rejection for the thirst for power monks abstained from eating meat (except when sick).¹⁷

...renouncing meat--a symbol of violence and death, physicality, and sexuality--was a cardinal point of monastic spirituality from the dawn of Christianity.

---Historian Massimo Montanari¹⁸

This view of meat cultivated in the early Christian churches gained greater acceptance over the centuries. Modern Catholics are probably unaware of why they abstain from meat specifically. The church's respect for vegetarianism is the reason, both in respectful remembrance of the Garden of Eden but more importantly due to the role of meat as an expression of social identity and power in centuries past.

Of course, the Christian faith has very little to say about the treatment of animals, and in no way discourages the consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy in general. Yet is is interesting that all the major religions religions have some sort of respect for vegetarianism. In an age where food was scarce and most every person probably suffered a deficiency of some nutrient, all the religions pay homage to a vegetarian system which greatly restricts the ability of humans to feed themselves. Despite this fascination with vegetarianism, and for some cultures the belief that animals were reincarnated human souls, most humans forced their animals to hard labor pulling plows and wagons, and most humans ate their animals. Man and livestock continued on this mutually beneficial partnership from the Stone Age until today.

IN THIS WORLD TOGETHER

Until about 10,000 B.C., the relationship between man and animal was clear. Man is predator; animal is prey. As livestock agriculture developed this relationship became less adversarial, more independent, and somewhat complex. The animal was still a provider of food, and other useful goods such as hides. Man no longer threw spears at the animal, but cared for the animal. Once the animal was fully domesticated, most of the livestock could not even survive outside the care of humans (pigs are an exception). Cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep are some of the most numerous animals on earth. In Darwinian terms, livestock are a spectacular success due to their arrangement with humans.

For many societies, meat and dairy literally kept humans alive. Nomadic cultures in the prairies of modern-day Mondolia lived almost exclusively off animal products. Virtually devoid of vegetables and fruits, they avoided scurvy by consuming the milk of mares (female horses), which is unusually high in Vitamin C. It is tempting to think that meat provided the ultimate pleasure at the dinner table, that after eating bowl after bowl of gruel they relished in the rare delight that a pork shoulder brought. Yet many of our ancestors would have been far more excited at the prospect of fresh vegetables and fruit than meat. Winters were hard on our ancestors, and little was known about food preservation. Grain seeds stored well through the winter of course, so long as they could be kept dry. The cold months were also passed consuming salted meats. Meat stores well when heavily salted, providing a nutritious and dependable winter food source. Even the poorest of peasant, though heavily dependent upon grains, had access to salted pork. Most people centuries ago were probably sick of eating salted pork and beef, especially at the end of winter. For settlers of new regions, meat and milk kept them alive while they struggled with crop failures. The first Europeans to settle North America found that their European seeds did not grow well in this new climate and soil. Their pigs, able to eat almost anything from grasses to meat, thrived, allowing the Europeans to thrive as well.

Humans and animals not only embarked on a mutual partnership to enhance each others' lives, but in many ways lived similar lives. From the beginning of agriculture, till the Middle Ages, and up to the near present, both livestock and humans lived in similar conditions, both smelled disgusting, both were dirty, both led desparate lives, and both lived with the constant threat of famine. Especially during the Middle Ages and before, livestock literally resided in some homes. Pigs and chickens were especially kept within the house during formidable weather and at night. However disgusting this may sound, remember that these houses bore no resemblance to those that dot America's suburds. The floors were dirt. The people rarely washed, so they stunk. Families huddling around the fireplace every day and night without washing makes this smell especially bad. Having a pig in the house may not have made the house smell any worse, and if the pig did consider the house its true home, it would seek the outside to urinate and defecate. While a hen may cover parts of the floor with their excrement, the volume of excrement from one or several hens is minimal and can be easily removed. Recall also that these houses were frequently straw, which was home to numerous rodents. Having a chicken reside in the house is not a big deal when the house is already infested with rodents.

The most vivid depiction of animal and man living together would be at the dinner table. The family ate without utensils, scooping food from large bowls into their place directly using their hands. They probably did not wash their hands before eating. Dogs, and often pigs and chickens waited patiently around the table for scraps that would be thrown onto the dirt floor. Man and pig literally dined together.

Both human and livestock lived knew that they might literally starve next season. One bad season and families could be forced to subsist on meager rations, begging for food or even waiting outside the butcher shop until they threw away the animal guts. Eating animal organs like lungs and brains sounds revolting, but hunger will drive humans to eat almost anything, even tree bark.. Now consider the livestock. Some pigs were left to search for food for themselves in the woods, literally starving for weeks before spring. When describing the harsh winters of 17^th century Scandinavia, historian Reay Tannahill states, "Famine in the extreme north was sometimes so near when spring came that the cattle, skeletal from their winter diet of straw and shredded bark, had to be carried out to the pastures."¹⁹ Many households could not afford to feed their cattle during the winter. They either slaughtered the animal prematurely, or for oxen (cattle used for labor) sold the animal to somone who specialized in keeping the animals alive during the winter. This person would resell the oxen to other households when the weather warmed, grass emerged from the soil, and the animal's labor was once again needed.⁴

It is unlikely that man ever felt pity for his livestock. This is not due to a lack of empathy, but to the fact that the animals' lives were equally tough as humans' lives. They both ached from hunger during famines, both shivered during blizzards. Their lives were both short and grueling. They both stunk, and experienced little more than the mundane chores that barely kept them alive. If you could ask the typically medieval farmer whether his farm animals should be given a better life, he would likely answer, "no, pigs do not deserve a better life than me."

Time typically improves conditions though. Technological discoveries and capitalism steadily increase living standards. For most of history, this wealth was shared between animal and human, though a much greater share was given to the human. Farmers learned how to produce better hay from better grasses to feed their animals throughout the winter. Improved building methods and cheaper materials allowed keeping animals in larger, cleaner barns. The tractor replaced the oxen, substantially changing the lives of cattle. In the past, they tugged at plows and other implements for many long days. Now, all cattle are asked to do is eat, breed, and rest. Female sows were given private barns to raise their young, and hens given their own laying room with individual nests. Farmers developed a better understanding of the nutritional needs of their animals and how to care for the animals' health.

This is not meant to imply that farmers took better care of their animals out of empathy or altruism. Healthier pigs gain more weight eating less food. The farmer received more food from the animal by taking better care of it. The animal was still a machine, just a more efficient, and consequently, happier machine.

GOING THEIR SEPARATE WAYS

It is true that it is in the farmers' interest to keep their animals happy. Animals that experience stress tend to produce less feed, and have trouble reproducing. Until recent decades, activities that improved the farmer's profits also reduced animal suffering. The partnership between human and animal has largely been a mutually beneficial arrangement; one could not be made better off without improving the sitation of the other. Recently, however, technologies have evolved that allow humans to gain at the animals' expense.

Consider the following description of how hog production has changed. A similar story exists for hens that lay eggs, referred to as layers. Most of the farm animal welfare debate centers around hog and egg production. Some attention is given towards chickens raised for meat (broilers), cattle, and others, but the change in animal welfare for these animals is not as clear as it is for hogs and layers.

Hog Production: 1900-1950

The science of hog nutrition was a nascent field at this time. Farmers fed their animals grain rations consisting of corn and other grains, but these rations did not meet all the nutritional requirements of the hog. Thus, the hogs had to be given access to pasture or forests to root and graze in search of these missing nutritional elements. Outdoor access was a must.

Few farmers relied exclusively on hogs for their income. It paid to raise hogs in conjuction with cattle. Providing a little cow milk to the cows help provide certain proteins and vitamins the hogs needed. Also, as discussed previously, the hogs would eat cow manure, as the manure contained undigested corn kernels, ensuring the farmer got the biggest bang for his buck for each bushel of corn grown or purchased. When cattle were slaughtered on the farm, or if the farm was located close to a meat processing facility, the hogs would be fed the contents of the dead cows' stomachs (called tankage), and perhaps even some of the cow guts.

Hog production begins with breeding. Sows would be placed in a small pen with the boar, or the boar might be allowed to stay with a group of sows, and breeding occurred naturally. The gestating sows would likely be housed in barns bedded deeply with straw. They always had access to outside, which might consist of a dry lot where the sows can root in the soil and roll in the mud. Hogs cannot sweat, so they need water to remain cool. During some parts of the year they would be given access to pasture.

Gestating sows were given comfortable shelter, outdoor access, and in summer they had pasture.

In the winter, if the winter was especially cold, the sows would remain in the barn for most of day, leaving only to eat or defecate. They would also urinate and defecate in the straw, the extent to which depended on the hogs and the setting. The straw would begin composting, generating heat which helped to keep the hogs warm. Also, lard was the most popular fat in these days, and the hogs' fat was almost as valuable as the meat. The farmers therefore bred the hogs to be fat, and that fat helped protect them from the cold.

It is also true that fat sows make better mothers. The genes for fatness and desirable mothering traits happen to be correlated. This provided another benefit of raising fat sows, because it was up to the sow to make sure its offspring survive. When the sow is ready to give birth she would be given an individual farrowing hut. Sows have retained their natural instinct to build nests, and the nests will help keep the piglets warm, so the farmer provided materials such as straw for the sow to build her nest. After birth the sow is allowed to nurse her piglets. The sow has access to the outside just like a gestating sow, though the hut may be designed to keep the piglets inside until they reach a certain age.

One of the biggest problems in hog production is crushing. This occurs when the mother hog is haphazard about how she lays down and accidently crushes her babies. Numbers on the rate of crushing in this type of farm is difficult to attain, but data suggest crushing may kill about 25% of all nursing piglets. Sometimes, farmers would encounter the problem where the sow eats her offspring. This was rare though, and any mother caught doing so would not be rebred.

Nursing sows were housed in individual huts or small group huts.

It was important to breed good mothers who were less likely
to crush or eat their offspring.

Once the piglets are weaned, they would typically be kept in groups of similar aged pigs where they were provided access to housing with deep-bedded straw, an outdoor lot where they may root and exercise, an outside feeding area, and during some parts of the year pasture.

After weaning, the pigs were fed until they are ready for slaughter. They would be given shelter with straw for warmth and rooting, access to outside (which often is a messy, unattractive lot beat up through years of rooting and mudbathing by hogs), and at times, pasture.

What has been described here is a stylized description of U.S. hog production systems in the period 1900-1950. There is no doubt that farms different across regions and farm managers, so this is only an approximation, but probably a good one. There are many attributes describing farm systems, but there are four attributes that are particular important today: space allotments within the barn, outdoor access, straw for bedding, and access to pasture. To articulate the provisions of these two attributes in the systems in the first half of the twentieth century, see the table below. On average, gestating and nursing sows were given 49 square feet of barn space or more with straw for bedding. Some outdoor access was always provided, and when the seasons provided good pasture they were allowed to graze.^20,21

Stylized Hog Production System 1900-1950
Nursing Sow	49 sq. ft. per sow housing outdoor access straw for bedding some pasture
Gestating Sow	more than 49 sq. ft. per sow housing outdoor access straw for bedding some pasture
Growing Pig	32 sq. ft. per pig housing outdoor access straw for bedding some pasture

It is important to distinguish between "outdoor access" and "pasture." When it is said that hogs are provided, "shelter with straw for bedding and outdoor access", the description may conjure an image much more aesthetically pleasing than what happens in reality. Many of these lots pertaining to the "outdoor access" are so muddy a human can hardly walk through it, and the sows that do often drag their udders in the mud. The shelters, while warm and dry, are messy. You would not want to sit down in it. Hogs are smelly, messy, and will quickly turn a nice pasture of grass into a dirty, holey mud hole. Do not think of any hog farm as pristine, it is naive and misleading.

Hog Production: Today

Remember there was a lack of knowledge about hog nutrition in the early part of the twentieth century. Because there are some nutrients not available in the standard feeds given to hogs, they had to be given access to the outside to find those nutrients for themselves. Also, they were given access to outside because building facilities that would house hogs for their entire lives was not profitable. Both of these changed.

Animal scientists eventually learned how to formulate feeds that met all the nutritional needs of the animal. Moreover, improvements in production facilities made it increasingly feasible to house hogs indoors entirely. Well designed barns can keep hogs at a constant, comfortable temperature and shelter. These barns keep hogs on concrete slabs, allowing their urine and feces to drop below to be washed away and stored on lagoons. This keeps hogs out of their own feces and the feces of other hogs, reducing the spread of disease. It is easier to manage hogs kept in small pens, allowing farmers to hire cheap unskilled labor in place of those experience in the business of hog production.

In the last several decades, lard has gone out of fashion and the soybean industry learned to extract oil from soybeans profitably. Soybean oil replaced lard. The meat was now the only part of the hog of value, so producers had to start producing leaner hogs. As mentioned previously, fatter sows make better mothers. Leaner sows are more prone to neglect their offspring, so to produce very lean hogs many of the sows must be forced to nurse their young. This led to the innovation of the farrowing crate, which will be discussed shortly.

Facilities are expensive, so to reduce the per hog cost of production, one must cram as many hogs under one roof as possible. Like any animal, hogs and especially sows become ornery when place in cramped conditions, and will fight and injure one another. To protect the sows from hurting one another, farmers place them in individual cages referred to as gestation crates.

This is a dramatic change from the previous farm of the 1900-1950 period. Hogs are now raised exclusively indoors on concrete slabs. Sows are maintained in individual cages. Let us take a tour of these farms, which opponents refer to as factory farms. When the sow is not nursing, they are permanently housed in the gestation crates shown below. The crates are barely larger than the sow herself, prohibiting her from turning around or lying down comfortably. Such crates have garnered much attention from animal advocacy groups, who spend large amounts of resources to ban these crates. They have met with success in select states from Florida to California.

Hogs are smart, inquisitive creatures who desire to root in the soil and explore for food. They experience frustration in such crates, developing odd behaviors such as repeatedly biting the cage bars and scratching the concrete floor. Some question whether the animal is truly "sad" from being kept in such crates. When given ample space and outdoor access, so long as the sow is given plenty of food, the sow does little more than sleep or eat. Keeping her in a small crate where she can do her sleeping and eating could then do little harm. That is how the argument goes. Such arguments are generally rejected by animal scientists though, who contend that denying an animal enough space to even turn around must cause stress and frustration.


Gestation Crates	Group Pens
Gestation crates are utilized by the majority of hog farms. When hog producers are forced to cease using gestation crates, they adopt group pens instead. Sows spend two-thirds of their lives in the gestation crate or group pen.

Proponents of the gestation crates also argue that the crates protect the sows from hurting one another, and they are correct. When the crates are banned, producers simply replace them with group pens, shown above. These pens house five or less sows in a pen with a little more space than they had in the gestation crate. So the sow has only a little more space but now must share a pen with other sows, which in some pens will lead to stress and injury. This is generally not an improvement in animal well-being.. Scientists generally conclude that the group pens are no better in terms of animal welfare than gestation crates.²² If animal advocacy groups want to improve animal welfare, they must do more than simply ban gestation crates.

When the sow is ready to give birth she is moved from the gestation crate to a farrowing crate, shown below. This crate is similar to the gestation crate in that it is so small the sow is prohibited from turning around, but has some additional features that force her to lie down gingerly to prevent her from crushing her offspring, provides ample room for her young, and forces her to nurse the piglets if she chooses not to. These crates have some advantages in terms of animal welfare, in that they reduce the number of piglets crushed. It is no doubt bad for the mother though, who suffers from restricted movement and the inability to build a nest and care for your young in the manner she desires.

The farrowing crate forces the mother to lie down gingerly, preventing her from crushing her offspring. It also forces mothers who would otherwise neglect their piglets to nurse.

When the piglets are weaned they will spend the remainder of their lives on a concrete pad or concrete slots, such as the ones shown below. The quarters are cramped, and they cannot perform natural behaviors such as root in the soil. The floor is hard, though the temperatures are comfortable and they never feel the coldness of winter rain.

Pigs are "finished", meaning they are fed until ready for harvest, on concrete slats in cramped groups.

Now that we have taken a tour through older and newer hog production systems, let us recap some important distinctions between the two, shown in the table below. Hogs today remain inside barns for their entire lives, on hard floors and cramped spaces. This alone does not imply that the animals are worse off than they were in the 1900-1950 period. Significant health and feed advancements have been made that, despite the cramped quarters, may imply that hogs are generally better off today than 75 years ago. For example, organic pork farmers are required to provide their animals with access to the outside, but are also prohibited from using synthetic amino acids, which provide a nutritional requirement deficient in most grains. Because the organic hogs are fed a less nutritional diet, disease prevalance and mortality rates are higher. No one knows whether these organic hogs are truly happier, because it is a tradeoff between outdoor access and health that is impossible for the hogs to tell us. In the early 1900s, while hogs were allowed access to outdoors, the nutritional profile of their diet was inferior to diets today, so whether they are more or less content today is a matter for conjecture. Also, as mentioned previously, simple access to outside may not be as pleasant as it initially sounds. There is little appealing about the outside when the outside consists of two feet of cold mud.

	Stylized Hog Production System: 1900-1950	Stylized Hog Production System: Today
Nursing Sow	49 sq. ft. per sow housing outdoor access straw for bedding some pasture	14 sq. ft. per sow housing no outdoor access concrete floor no pasture
Gestating Sow	> 49 sq. ft. per sow housing outdoor access straw for bedding some pasture	14-24 sq. ft. per sow housing no outdoor access concrete floor no pasture
Growing Pig	32 sq. ft. per pig housing outdoor access straw for bedding some pasture	8 sq. ft. per pig housing no outdoor access concrete floor no pasture

Left Behind?

The aforementioned story about hog production closely parallels that of hens who lay eggs. The story for animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats is different. It could easily be argued that beef cattle, sheep, and goats live an overall pleasant life, better than their ancestors. The case for dairy cows is more ambiguous and complicated due to its asssociation with the veal industry.

Pigs and humans have traversed the Neolithic Revolution, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance as a partner-of-sorts with humans. Though the pig and human did not enter a voluntary agreement, it has largely been a mutually beneficial arrangement. Throughout this time, both man and his livestock have generally improved their lot on earth. Their symbiotic rise seems to have detached in the last sixty years though. Humans now live a much more pleasant, healthy, and full life than any generation before. One cannot say the same thing for our livestock without receiving thunderous rebuttal.

However advanced our understanding of animal welfare becomes, a prudent person must always remain agnostic about their ability to understand the true emotions of an animal. Regardless of whether you believe hogs in factory farms are happy, sad, or some emotion between these two extremes, there is little doubt that these animals can be made happier than their current state. By simply giving them more room and a more enriched environment, without changing the other aspects of how they are managed, will make for happier hogs.

The graph below comes from a scientic publication measuring the welfare of sows across different production systems.²³ The system circled, individual stalls, refers to the hog production system used by a majority of hog farms today. The overall welfare score is low, almost as low as it can be. One could interpret this to imply the sows suffer, but remember, the true emotions of an animal is always outside the domain of human understanding. The score can be interpreted to say that most of the basic needs agreed upon by animal scientists is not met by the current system. It would not be absurd to interpret this as saying hogs in modern production facilities suffer.

What science can measure with significant certainty is not whether an animal is "happy" or "sad", but whether it is "happier" or "sadder" relative to another state. Notice that the other hog production systems to the right of the individual stall systems possess a higher animal welfare score. The increase in the welfare score is large, suggesting that the overall welfare of a sow can be improved, dramatically.

What do these "other" production systems entail? It is rather simple. Instead of confining sows to a single small crate, the alternative systems allow her freedom of movement and more barn space per sow. As long as sows have ample room within a barn, fighting among sows will be minimal, and if fighting does occur, there is plenty of room for the smaller sows to escape. They allow some outdoor access for the sow, and give them straw in the building for bedding and rooting. Sows have the opportunity to build nests when they are close to giving birth, and when the piglits are borntend to her young outside of a farrowing crate. There will be greater crushing of baby pigs, but some of this can be avoided by selecting good mothers, and the use of crushing bars. It may be that farrowing crates really are needed to minimize crushing though. If this is the case, that may be okay, as piglets can be weaned after two weeks and the mother taken out of the crate.

This alternative farm being described seems to resemble the farms in the 1900-1950 period, and it does in some respects. However, many aspects of the modern age remain. The alternative systems retain concrete pads in some areas. Sows like the coolness of concrete in the summer and having concrete in the feeding areas keeps the lots from becoming too muddy. The modern advancements in health care and feed should not be forsaken, as a hog will not be happy if it is not healthy.

Improving the well-being of hogs through these alternative systems does come at a cost. The increase in production cost is not known for certain, but is probably in the range of a 10-20% increase in production costs. At the grocery store this may not be but a 5% increase in pork costs, but consumers are notorious for selecting items with the least price. Some stores such as Whole Foods are beginning to sell animal food products that are guaranteed to be raised in a humane manner, but these are an extremely small percentage of total sales.

Perhaps future legislation will force farmers to adopt these other systems. Can one be forced to treat an animal kindly? Some people answer "no", and reaffirm this belief with the statement that anyone who raises an animal for profit cannot be expected to treat the animal well. For these individuals, the only ethical approach to food is an outright abstainment from food derived from animals. They are called vegans, and they are less than 1% of the population. The question is: will this percentage grow?

WE SHOULDN'T BE NIGGARDLY

Did the word "niggardly" in that title shock or anger you? Do you think an Oklahoma State University professor who uses this word in writing should be fired? You shouldn't, because niggardly is a legitimate word that describes someone who very reluctant to give or spend anything. The word niggardly has nothing to do with African Americans. Yet, a Washington D.C. Mayoral staffer lost his job for using this word in a phrase like, "we shouldn't be niggardly with the budget." It was absurd for him to lose his job for having a large vocabulary, but these are the days when political correctness trumps reason. Decades ago were the days where rascism trumps reason.

This goes to illustrate how tremendously society has changed in just a few decades. During the Civil War, the abolitionists who fought to free slaves did not want blacks to have equal rights, become their neighbors, or marry their daughters. Fifty years ago, the vast majority of Americans were rascist. Today, most of us would be appaled at a rascist statement, and want nothing to do with people who are known rascists. People haven't changed, culture changed. If you are a white person and were alive in the 1960's you would in all probability have been rascist. Everyone is rascist to some degree, but you would have preferred to live in an exclusively white neighborhood and would have demeaned black people in the company of other whites, if not the company of other blacks.

This is not an attack on you personally, or people in general, it is just a simple fact about people. Humans can exhibit admirable kindness or horrible cruelty, depending on their environment. The current environment, the social norms that float throughout the U.S., is to treat livestock as a machine whose emotions and ability to suffer are irrelevant. A loud minority are attacking this norm, seeking to steer it towards a more compassionate behavior towards animals. Some seek to improve the conditions in which animals are raised for food. Others seek an outright abolition on the use of animals for food.

Animal advocates often note parallels between our treatment of livestock and slaves. It is true that humans give the same consideration towards livestock as whites gave towards slaves - their interests only mattered to the extent that it benefitted whites. What they have not noted is the similar parallel between food consumers today and sugar consumers of the 19^th century. The British love their tea, especially with sugar. Sugar was grown in the West Indies, though, which utilized slave labour, the horrors of which the modern day reader is well aware. The British in the early 1800's were less aware though. Those who were enlightened and also appaled at how sugar was produced did what animal advocacies do today: administer forceful and emotional educational campaigns at consumers with a call for boycotts. Amelia Opie penned The Black Man's Lament, shown below in 1826, hoping it would resinate with the average consumer and convince them to either drink unsweetened tea or purchase the more expensive East Indies tea which did not utilize slave labour. Compare the propaganda below with the Meet Your Meat video posted at YouTube.com.

As you might imagine, some of the tea sold as East Indies tea was fradulent, really grown by slaves. This is true today for food labeled humane, though to a lesser extent. I have personally visited farms that did not raise hogs as they advertised, and one of these sells to a major food retailer that you the reader have probably frequented. The anti-sugar campaign was long. The first sugar boycott was in 1792 and the second in 1807. Public displays were held, such as the smashing of teacups in public that had once contained sugar. Opposition eventually became loud enough that the British abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833. You are probably well-versed in the history of slavery in the U.S.

There are indeed similarities between the animal rights and civil rights movements, but differences as well. Blacks are equal to whites, in every way including their ability to care for themselves, there is no doubt to that. If you free black people, and bestow them the same rights and opportunities as whites, they will flourish. They have flourished, when these opportunities were the same. Black people can care for themselves, but livestock cannot. Black people flourish, but virtually all livestock would cease to exist if animal products were banned. Some of these animals arguably had a life worth living, especially beef cattle. This is a different outcome than the abolition of slavery.

Consider two facts. Fact 1: it is possible to raise animals for food and provide the animals with a high state of well-being, at what most would feel a reasonable price. Fact 2: prohibiting the consumption of animal food products will result in the elimination of an extremely high percentage of livestock animals. These two facts make the animal rights case different from the slavery case. One would never argue that humans can be owned but still made happy, because each person is said to deserve the right of freedom. Animals cannot possess any sort of freedom that human own. Only the hog could survive in the wild, and their numbers would be drastically reduced. When freedom equilibrates to death, that is not freedom at all. One can rightly argue the similarities between livestock agriculture and slavery, but to argue with intellectual integrity, must admit to these differences also.

There are many other similarities and differences in slavery and livestock agriculture, but this is not a polemic. This is a story about humans and their livestock. The story has been told. I leave it to you, the intelligient and enlightened reader, to decide what it all means.

DENOUEMENT

There is no denouement. Whether livestock agriculture should remain as is, be changed, or be abolished is left to the reader to decide. It is rare to read a work about animal rights and the author not reach a dramatic conclusion, a conclusion which the author believes undoubtedly tenable and obvious. An honest appraisal of the subject reveals a more ambiguous and complex topic.

What "should be" is a matter of personal preferences. What "will be" is a question that can be addressed. Predicting how livestock agriculture will change is impossible though. Nothing but mystery remains. A salient difference between the civil rights and the animal rights movement is that blacks were able to fight for their rights but animals cannot. Livestock cannot even grasp the meaning of a "right". Had African Americans not demanded to drink out of the same water fountain as whites, there would probably still be separate water fountains for both in the South. For the emotions of livestock to be given greater consideration, they will need humans to fight their battle for them.

Perhaps nothing will change. People will continue to eat meat and laugh at PETA as a group of loonies. Those who decide to become vegan will have difficulty finding food that meets their needs, they will be mocked, and they will be ineffective at making any significant changes.

Perhaps everything will change. It was demonstrated how quickly society from a racist people to an overly anti-racist people. Fifty years ago blacks sat in the back of the bus, but today one unfortunate racist remark can spell an end to someone's career. If enough people decide to fight for animal rights, 100 years from now eating meat and drinking milk may be as offensive as the word niggardly.

Or, society may dwell between these two extremes. Farmers may continue to raise farm animals but face stricter regulations. Some U.S. farmers decide to stop raising animals in face of new regulations, and consumers obtain their meat from Mexico and Brazil, where animals are treated far worse than they were in the U.S. The two sides exchange bitter insults and expensive lawsuits. One side retreats as quickly as it gains ground, and no one is sure whether the farm animals are any better off.

A more interesting but unlikely future entails God returning the Garden of Eden to humans, and all creatures of earth including humans return to vegetarianism. This future would certainly settle the farm animal welfare issue. Should you find yourself in this vegetarian paradise, enjoy yourself, but don't take advice from any snakes.

Notes

(1) Soler, Jean. 1996. Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Kritzman, Lawrence. Editor. Columbia University Press. New York, New York. Page 52.

(2) Gandhi, Mohandas K. 1957. An Autobiography: The Story Of My Experiments With Truth. Bacon Press. Boston, MA. Page 426 & 427.

(3) Flandrin, Jean-Louis. 1996. Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Kritzman, Lawrence. Editor. Columbia University Press. New York, New York. Page 13.

(4) Tannahill, Reay. 1988. Food in History Three Rivers Press. New York, New York. Page 1.

(5) Holldobler, Bert and Edward O. Wilson. 1994. Journey to the Ants The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachussetts.

(6) Davis, H.P., L. Wermelskirchen, S. Dickinson, W.H. Smith, W.C. Coffey, and H.W. Nisonger, eds. 1937. Livestock Enterprises. Chicago: J.B. Lippincott Company. Page 225.

(7) Mozoyer, Marcel and Laurance Roudart. 2006. A History of World Agriculture. Monthly Review Press. New York, New York.

(8) Kritzman, Lawrence. Editor. 1996. Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Columbia University Press. New York, New York.

(9) Diamond, Jared. 1999. Guns, Germs, and Steel. W.W. Norton & Company. New York, New York.

(10) University of Groningen. "Predecessor of Cows, The Aurochs, Were Still Living In The Netherlands Around AD 600." ScienceDaily 15 December 2008. 16 December 2008.

(11) Supra note 7, page 46.

(12) Ruminants are animals who are hoofed, have a stomach divided into four compartments, and who chew their cud. These include must of the herding animals, such as sheep, cattle, deer, and antelopes.

(13) Clutton-Brock, Juliet. 1989. A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals. First University of Texas Press Paperback Printing. Austin, TX.

(14) The Economist. "Noble or Savage?" December 22, 2007.

(15) Horan, Richard, Jason Shogren, and Erwin Bulte. "Competitive Exclusion, Diversification, and the Origins of Agriculture" Paper presented at the American Agricultural Economics Association>2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida.

(16) Gambone, J.C. Kansas--A Vegetarian Utopia: The Letters of John Milton Hadley, 1855-1856. Kansas Collection: Kansas Historical Quarterlies.

(17) Montanari, Massimo. 1996. Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Chapter 15. Peasants, Warriors, Priests: Images of Society and Styles of Diet. Kritzman, Lawrence. Editor. Columbia University Press. New York, New York.

(18) Supra note 17, page 183.

(19) Supra note 4, page 247

(20) Baker, A. H. 1913. Livestock: A Cyclopedia. Kansas City: Thompson Publishing.

(21) Davis, H. P., W. H. Smith, L. Wermelskirchen, W. C. Coffey, S. Dickinson, and H. S. Nisonger. 1928. Livestock Enterprises. J.B. Lippincott Company. Chicago, IL.

(22) Task Force Report. “A comprehensive review of housing for pregnant sows.” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 10(227) November 15, 2005.

(23) Bracke, M. B. M, J. H. M. Metz, B. M. Spruijt, and W. G. P. Schouten. “Decision Support System for Overall Welfare Assessment in Pregnant Sows A: Model Structure and Weighting Procedure.” Journal of Animal Science. 80 (2002): 80:1835-1845.