Public opinion towards castration without anaesthesia and lack of access to pasture in beef cattle production

Abstract

Recent publications have shown that citizens in developing nations are gaining interest in farm animal welfare. The aims of this study were to assess the opinion of Chilean citizens about surgical castration without anaesthesia and lack of access to pasture in beef cattle production, to investigate how involvement in livestock production influences opinions, and to evaluate if different types of information would affect their opinion towards these management practices. The study was carried out in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile, and consisted of two surveys with 400 participants in each study. The first one used an online, self-administered questionnaire and the second one used a face to face questionnaire. The second questionnaire had four information treatments assigned randomly to survey participants (no information; negative information; negative and positive information; positive information). Most participants were aware that the two management practices are common in beef production systems and were opposed to them. Involvement in animal production was associated with greater acceptance of both management practices and participants that had visited a beef production farm before the study were more likely to support castration without anaesthesia in Survey 1. Belonging to any socioeconomic group and providing negative or positive information had no impact on participants’ opinion. The results show a disconnection between the views of participants recruited for this study and beef production systems that do not provide pain control for male cattle surgical castration or provide little or no access to pasture.

Are views towards egg farming associated with Brazilian and Chilean egg consumers’ purchasing habits?

“…In comparison with choice methodologies, where researchers choose topics on which participants will give their opinion [ 29 , 32 , 47 ], this methodology avoids soliciting participants’ opinion on issues they may have little or no understanding. We considered that relevant, given several reports of low awareness towards animal production systems and animal welfare among citizens in Latin America [ 5 , 23 , 60 ]. Social desirability bias (i.e.…”

On the Road to End Pig Pain: Knowledge and Attitudes of Brazilian Citizens Regarding Castration

“…The only demographic characteristic of participants that influenced attitudes towards piglets’ castration was sex, with women showing more negative attitudes towards surgical castration in both surveys, as shown in two previous studies [ 33 , 57 ], and adding to several others that have shown that women have greater concerns regarding farm animal welfare [ 52 ]. More than 25% of the participants in both samples reported growing up with some contact with farm animal production.…”

“…However, meat-eating habits had some influence on acceptability of surgical castration and its alternatives. As shown in a Chilean study [ 57 ], acceptability of surgical castration tended to be greater among participants that ate meat more frequently and those that considered meat more important. This finding is relevant because more than half of the participants in both samples rated eating meat as important, and over three quarters ate meat 3 to 7 days a week.…”

“…Although some studies indicated that consumers in Europe have positive attitudes towards immunocastration [ 31 , 32 , 56 ], a widely reported limitation for adoption of this method is producers’ and industry stakeholders’ concern regarding consumer acceptance [ 17 , 20 , 23 , 48 ]. Indeed, health and safety aspects are the animal production traits that consumers in different parts of the world perceive as most important when assessing alternatives to pig castration [ 30 , 33 , 48 , 57 ].…”

“…Expecting such low levels of awareness, we provided participants some information on why and how pigs are castrated, aiming to help people to evaluate the alternative methods in the context of commercial pig farming. However, it has been shown that simply informing lay citizens of the technical reasons behind practices that they may perceive as detrimental to animal welfare does not necessarily lead to support [ 55 , 57 , 59 , 61 ]. Yet, reducing animal suffering may be a powerful argument for the public to accept technologies that they otherwise reject on the grounds of risk for humans [ 33 , 56 , 62 , 63 ].…”