Factory Farming Only Possible with Daily Medication

The Zurich Animal Protection Society supports the initiative against factory farming.

Economic pressure is leading to ever-larger agricultural operations – with negative consequences for livestock. The industrialisation is most extreme in poultry farming: intensive chicken fattening only works thanks to medication known as coccidiostats, which are typically administered to the animals via their feed throughout their entire lives.

The factory farming initiative affects only a small number of large operations, many of which engage in poultry fattening. Current animal welfare regulations allow them to cram up to 27’000 broiler chickens into extremely confined spaces. This increases pathogen pressure — that is, the risk of disease. In conventional poultry farming, animals are therefore routinely given medication.

Medication Against Coccidia

These feed additives are coccidiostats, which work in a similar way to antibiotics. Coccidia are single-celled organisms that can cause severe intestinal disease. They occur particularly frequently in poultry and often lead to bloody diarrhoea and even death. Laying hen chicks and organic broiler chicks are vaccinated against them, but conventional broiler chicks are not. These birds live such short lives that vaccination is not cost-effective. It is cheaper and simpler to routinely add coccidiostats to conventional broiler feed.

Preventing Residues and Resistance

As with antibiotics, resistance can also develop with coccidiostats. To counter this problem, the active substances are regularly rotated. And since no significant residues have been detected in chicken meat, many of these medications have no withdrawal period and may be administered from the first to the last day of the animal’s life. The fact is: conventional poultry farming cannot function without medication, because losses would otherwise be too high. «This shows how sick the system isThis shows how sick the system is», concludes Nadja Brodmann of the Zurich Animal Protection Society.

Excesses of Industrial Animal Production

Industrial animal production, however, has entirely different consequences as well. In barns housing thousands of broiler chickens, monitoring the animals is more difficult. Sick or injured animals are not discovered immediately, despite regular inspection rounds.«The affected animals suffer all the longer«, Brodmann criticizes. Moreover, the high-performance chickens grow so rapidly that leg damage is virtually inevitable, and the animals are ultimately barely able to move.

Organic poultry farming as an alternative

Preventive medications are prohibited under Bio Suisse standards. Instead, organic farms rely on vaccinated chicks, smaller groups of up to 500 broilers, more space in the barn, and ample free-range access – this promotes animal welfare and strengthens the immune system. Rotational grazing is required to prevent coccidiosis and other pathogens. In addition, robust, slow-growing breeds are used, which remain healthy until the end. All of this makes organic chicken more expensive – but it is justifiable from an animal welfare perspective. «Turbo broilers with their rapid weight gain should be banned outright«, Brodmann demands. A yes vote on the factory farming initiative would result in exactly that.