Sadly, surgery on farm animals is still permitted without anaesthesia up to a certain age. It used to be commonly believed that young animals do not experience pain to the same extent as older ones. This assumption has long been proven wrong. 

Farmers and producers, however, continue to carry out surgery without anaesthesia for an obvious reason: to save money. 

Expert anaesthesia must be administered by a vet. In contrast to animals like cats and dogs, where it is illegal to perform any form of surgery without an anaesthetic, economic profit takes precedence in the case of farmed animals. Even where extremely painful procedures are undertaken, the well-being of the animals is not taken into account on-farm, nor by legislators and decision-makers.

In addition to our lobbying efforts, every consumer has the power to change this thinking. Animal well-being will only play a role in the economy when demand drops for the cheapest meat, and intensive livestock farming is scaled down as a result.