>
> The practice that needs to be discontinued on ethical grounds as well as
> health is Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO): feedlots, pig
> prisons, chickens in cages.  This practice is absolutely bizarre, if you
> stop to think about it.


Hi Lynne. I grew up on a confinement hog farm. Funny thing, the sows were
allowed a large pasture to roam in but as the time to give birth drew near
they were put into confinement. It was hard to get the young sows into the
confinement barn the first time. But the older sows, which had been in
before, would run right in. I think they liked the confinement barn, they
didn't have to compete for food, it was warm.

Generally the pigs growing up in confinement didn't seem to mind it, they
didn't know any other condition. As long as they had plenty of space it
wasn't bad. Eventually they would get big enough to sell, by that time the
pens were getting too small for the number of animals, but we tried to move
them into empty pens to prevent that from happening. It is pretty easy to
tell when there isn't enough room because they start to fight or show other
unusual behavior.

>
> The U.S. is the only country where the meat supply is almost completely
> CAFO.


Don't know about that, but the US imported the idea of confinement pigs from
Europe, Denmark or Holland, if I recall correctly.