Working on farm animal issues is perhaps the most difficult of all animal welfare work.

That’s because there are animal liberation activists who often attack groups like ours daily.

Every morning, I open hate emails that call me a “murderer” and tell me that the only way to be humane is to become a vegan.

Why does it have to be this way? If they want to convert people to veganism, that is their prerogative. But in the meantime, 10 billion farm animals are raised for food every year and they need our help.

HFAC’s mission is to ensure safeguards and protections for the humane treatment of farm animals.

Their agenda is to abolish global agriculture. They do not want animals used for anything, especially food.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a vegan. Some of our strongest supporters are vegetarians and vegans because they really care about farm animals, understand their needs, and want those animals to have better lives in today’s realities.

But there is something wrong with activists attacking the work animal welfare agencies do to relieve the suffering of farm animals.

With 96% of the American public eating meat and only 4% of the public being vegetarian – and a percentage of that being vegan, I started this program to improve the lives of the farm animals currently being raised and slaughtered for food.  It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now to hold off on caring about farm animals while a vocal minority attempts to change worldwide diets.

Instead, our mission is to address farm animal issues now. And, the best way to do that is to set standards on how food animals are raised and handled humanely throughout their lives, AND work with farmers and ranchers on how to introduce those changes into their farm operations.

You are probably saying, hold on, why would these activist groups attack farm animal welfare groups? The answer is simple. For some reason, they think that working on compassionate farm animal care will keep people eating meat.

That’s just crazy. People who choose to be vegetarians or vegans will not be persuaded to eat meat because of our standards. Sadly, these groups would rather see animals suffer now in order to promote their agenda than support compassionate standards and systemic change to the farm animal system.

That’s unacceptable to us. We want to see systemic change to a factory farming system that is broken. We want to work with farmers to help them change to a more humane system of raising food animals.

One of the ways we reach that goal is by certifying one farm in a company that meets our humane standards. We may not certify their other farms in other geographic locations though. We do this because we understand that farmers willing to make changes to one farm will be open to making changes to their entire operations, especially if they see that consumers are buying their products and there is a demand for food raised humanely.

Simply put, they can only use the Certified Humane® label on products from animals that are Certified Humane.  That is why on our website we may list a company, but we also list only the brands that are Certified Humane.  We also say, if you don’t see our logo on the package, don’t buy the product.

I am sharing this with you because a video surfaced recently from an unknown animal activist group that shows suffering animals and implies that these animals are Certified Humane. Not one single animal shown in the video is certified by us. Everything said about us in the entire message is based on fabrications.

We are transparent about what we do. Our Standards of Care are always on our website for everyone to see and review.

And our mission is clear: the humane treatment of farm animals, everywhere.

Did you hear the news?

This week, one of the nation’s largest poultry companies was forced to remove their “humanely-raised” label from their chicken products. Under their current program, they used current industry practices to base their claim.

As you know, that could never happen under Humane Farm Animal Care’s (HFAC) Certified Humane® program.

Since 2003, HFAC has been the leading international non-profit certification organization improving the lives of millions of farm animals in food production.

HFAC actually has detailed and precise humane standards of care for farm animals written by the best animal welfare scientists in the world. As a result, our Certified Humane® program ensures the humane treatment of farm animals as well as a living environment where animals can express their natural behaviors.

HFAC’s Animal Care Standards, written by our scientific committee, includes the highest humane slaughter standards for poultry. Not only do we have these humane standards, what separates us from the rest is that HFAC hires independent inspectors to visit farms in the Certified Humane® program. In fact, independent inspectors must have a Masters degree or Ph.D. in veterinary or farm animal welfare before they can ever be considered as an inspector for the Certified Humane® program.

This third party reporting ensures transparency and that Certified Humane’s® high standards of care are being met for the millions of cattle, pigs, chickens, laying hens, turkeys, sheep, goats, bison and dairy cows in the program.

As a non-profit certification program, Certified Humane® relies on our supporters to keep inspections independent and transparent.

So if you want to know if your chicken REALLY is humanely-raised, you only have to look for the Certified Humane® label.

To find a store near you that sells Certified Humane® products, visit www.certifiedhumane.org or download the free Certified Humane® App for iPhone or Google Play for Android.

As always, thank you for making a difference in the lives of millions of farm animals in food production. And, please remind friends and family that they can be Certified Humane® supporters too.

One of the current standard practices of poultry breeding companies that supply egg-laying hens to the egg farming industry is the way breeders of laying hens eliminate male chicks. This is a global issue.

Some of the methods used for disposal of male chicks are:

High Speed Maceration, Carbon Dioxide (gas) they are the most common.

Decapitation, cervical dislocation, carbon monoxide gas and electrocution are also used but not common (due to human safety issues in hatcheries).

Death by drowning, suffocation by piling chicks in disposal containers, chloroform, ether, cyanide or thermal exhaustion – are not frequently used.

We at Humane Farm Animal Care want change in this area. There is promising research on sexing embryos that would eliminate these methods of male chick euthanasia. For those of you who have written to us on this issue, I have urged you to contact the Honorable Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture at the U.S. Department of Agriculture urging him to put money into this type of research in order to eliminate the practice of maceration and the other practices mentioned above as a viable alternative. It appears this is not a priority on the research list of the USDA.

Finally – There is at last some hope in this area. Unilever has committed to funding research in this area. They announced today:

In our corporate position statement on Farm Animal Welfare we have included our commitment to engage with the egg production industry, the animal welfare community and R&D companies to develop alternative options for the current practices.

We are committed to providing financial support to research and market introduction of in-ovo gender identification (sexing) of eggs, a new technology that has the potential to eliminate the hatching and culling of male chicks in the poultry-breeding industry. We are arranging meetings with animal-welfare experts, egg industry organizations, suppliers, and other stakeholders to develop a multi-stakeholder dialogue and tangible steps to address this important issue and explore alternative options.

To read the entire announcement:
http://www.unileverusa.com/resource/Animal-Welfarepolicy.aspx

Please write to Unilever and thank them for investing money into important research that will end so much suffering for so many male chicks. You can write to them at: comments@unilever.com

Many years ago I learned that the best defense is a good offense… When I started the program, there were producers who would say they would not be on our program because our standards weren’t high enough… I would ask, “What standards specifically are you referring to?”  They would not respond.  The reason they would not respond, I came to find out is because they couldn’t meet our standards.

I am proud to say that HFAC have qualified the terms cage free, free range and pasture raised to bring clarity to an often misled and lied to consumer. This also allows truly credible farmers to confirm the truth of their labels.   When we set the original standards in 2003 we had “cage free” and “free range” standards.  Over the years, the term free range was used by anyone without any definition,  standard or meaning.  Therefore, we had to change the name of our “free range” standard to what it really was, which was a pasture standard.    While we were doing that, we felt we needed to update and clarify what was truly necessary for the birds in a pasture setting. It took our scientific committee two years to revise the laying hen standards to make sure all the issues that needed to be addressed were addressed.  We also felt a need to develop a  “free range” standard for those laying hens that went outdoors seasonally, or had “outdoor access” since there was no actual space requirement or other requirements to protect the hens when they went outdoors.

For Pasture Raised, the birds are outdoors year-round.  There is a 108 sq. ft/bird requirement, which is based on a rotational grazing system: up to 1/5th of the land may be used at one time to allow the rest of the land to rest, recover and prevent disease.  That may well mean that the hens have only 20 sq/ ft./bird for a temporary period of time.  However, the birds are moved through each section of the pasture in a timeframe appropriate for each farm’s climate and season, to ensure birds are always on fresh vegetation. This helps prevent disease and parasites and the recovery time is critical to allow the pastures to regenerate so these birds can truly be considered “pasture-raised.”  This standard is based on the research by the Soil Association which was founded in 1946 and is a non-profit organization.  This is a holistic approach that ensures the welfare of the birds as well as stewardship of the land.

The “Free Range” standard was based on birds who go indoors for part of the year, which will give the land that those birds were on time to rest, recover and prevent disease. The minimum space allowance for these laying hens is 2 sq. ft /bird

While there are companies that claim higher square feet per bird for example, 16 sq. ft/bird or 20 sq. ft./bird and claim their hens are out every day on the same land year in and year out, if the birds are never moved to another area they are “denuding” the ground.  This means there will be no vegetation or “pasture” for the birds to forage in.  Our “free range” standards require that if there is not adequate vegetation, alternative ground cover, such as straw, mulch, sand, etc. may be used to provide foraging material – so if laying hens are out on the same piece of property with straw, mulch or sand, no one would consider this pasture.  So when one claims their birds are “on pasture” that would be misleading in this situation.

If a company with higher sq. ft/bird, such as 14 sq. ft. or 20 sq. ft. bird and they are outdoors every day, they could rotationally graze the hens to allow parts of their pasture or range time to recover.  At 14 sq. ft./bird, divided into 1/5th that comes to 2.8 sq. ft./bird.  At 20 sq. ft/bird that would come to 4 sq. ft/bird

No one with a Certified Humane® logo on their egg carton can use the term “free range” or “pasture raised” unless they meet all of those standards.

Because the public has a vision of hens roaming on green rolling hills, there are unscrupulous companies that like to put those images on their cartons and put out press releases and statements inferring a vision that we all would like to believe.

There are companies that have “pasteurized” eggs… just  like pasteurized milk, which has nothing to do with how the hens are raised, or the cows are raised, “pasteurized” has to do with how the eggs or milk is processed.

Some companies set their own standards and verify their own compliance.

There are companies that claim, “Pasture raised and third party verified.”  What does that mean?  What are the pasture standards and who is the third party doing the verification?
If you truly want to buy a “pasture raised” egg, look for the Certified Humane® label on the carton or the Animal Welfare Approved® label on the carton.   If you don’t see those labels,

I would go to google and do a search and check out who they are and what they really mean and say.

As for “free range,” we are the only certification organization that has an actual standard for free range.  This is my suggestion: If you see an egg carton that has the words “free range” and does not have the Certified Humane® logo on the carton, I would do a Google (or Yahoo or other internet) search… not the brand website, go to Google… because you would be surprised at what you will learn about those companies.   If you go to the company’s website, chances are you will see photos of bucolic farms that haven’t seen chickens on them for more than a few hours.   You know you are being misled when the pictures don’t show the inside of the house, the nest boxes, perches, and where the chickens sleep on a daily basis.