Rock and hard place, want your cake and eat it, I would suggest giving the farmer \ producer a brake. Our native animals need much more attention than the selective few. All of what you speak of, can and will exist(law), but the endangered can not wait! Nice thoughts animal welfare groups, but if you want to do some real good, I can give you a few phone numbers that would be appreciated, if you are so hard on saving life other than what is already regulated at a fair level.

Try farming with your stately views and see how hard it is.

NATIVE AUSTRALIAN ANIMALS NEEDS YOUR HELP MUCH MORE THAN THE EXSEPED NORMAL UNDERSTANDING.

Your arguments are futile compared to the on going natural disasters

I quite like the Understanding of the non-humans communicated in this essay and website.

http://www.fearnomorezoo.org/literature/observe_learn.php

Both on this site and via a book titled The Green Gorilla the author points out that a vegan diet is the optimum diet for human health and well-being. And that food should essentially ones medicine too.

His conclusion were based on both his own experiments and extensive research into both the traditional and modern literature (there has been much research into diet and its effect on health in recent decades.)

Also that historically (and still in now time) there has been massive cultural resistance to the very ideal of vegetarianism.

Everybody knows that vegetarians are sandal-wearing kooks dont they--and of course vegans are even more weird!

"The Pig Code sanctions the docking of piglets’ tails, while the Poultry Code provides for layer hens to be subjected to “appropriate beak trimming”. These procedures are both permitted to be carried out without pain relief."

If we want to do something, how about starting with making pain relief available to farmers at a reasonable price. A male calf that has just been castrated wants something stronger than a panadol. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing strong enough to numb this pain that can legally accessed by anyone except a vet.

There's just one problem with the holier-than-thou mantle adopted by vegans particularly - animals still die for their meal. Or do they really think vegetable farmers don't use pesticides (and yes, organic farmers use pesticides too - they may be "natural" but they're still pesticides. Actually, as one farmer friend of mine once said, "some of the stuff organic farmers use is worse than anything I spray on my crops")?

As for chickens, let's be honest here: I keep chooks of my own, and while I am adamantly opposed to outright cruelty to any animal, they're not much more than "food goes in one end, poo and eggs come out the other". Any animal that can have its head removed and still function perfectly well clearly isn't at the top of the tree.

Lawyers are more the problem than the solution. Courts are notoriously slow in making any decisons - and then appeals can go on forever. How does any of that help a pig in a sow stall or a chook in a cage?

The solution lies with consumers. Whatever one says about one's feeling for animals, if you aren't prepared to pay about $7 for a dozen eggs, $4 a litre for milk and at least double the current price for pig products (including the insulin they provide for humans), you're not serious about animal welfare. Funny how people bitch about the price of milk but not about the price of bottled water or Coca Cola.

Farm welfare accreditation is going gangbusters in the UK. Sales of the more expensive high welfare product continued to grow rapidly even during the global financial crisis (when sales of organic product fell for the first time). The accreditation schemes range from the Little Red Tractor, which has standards better than the average but still less than most would expect, through the RSPCA Freedom Food scheme and right up to the Rolls Royce of animal welfare standards accreditation - the Humane Society's standards.By having a hierarchy of standards, farmers can improve welfare gradually and still make a living and, importantly, consumers can gradually adjust to the prices they need to pay for good animal welfare. What a pity we aren't embracing a similar system here !

"The Pig Code sanctions the docking of piglets’ tails, while the Poultry Code provides for layer hens to be subjected to “appropriate beak trimming”. These procedures are both permitted to be carried out without pain relief."

Yes, much like the way a ‘circumcision’ is carried out, or at least was.

Tell me, and be honest, can you name one boy who can remember actually being circumcised (at birth).

You lot just like to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Now as for not requiring meat in ones diet.

I think until there is an overwhelming majority who don’t eat meat, the majority rules, but, as always, feel free to not eat meat but leave me out of it thanks.

It’s funny how the ‘minority groups’ often try to convince the ‘majority’ that they are wrong.