[andrewmatte]

I am not a doctor - I just write code... I remember being up in arms about weird stuff in my food when I first heard about it but now I think about the wellbeing of the animals while they're alive and shit, man, if I were sick I'd want antibiotics too. When is it excessive? Is it because they're all so close together in the factory "farm"? What do the veterinarians say about this?

[nervousvarun]

It's not given to sick animals, it's constantly given to all livestock because it's cheap and it's seen as a sort of "preventative maintenance". Which is bad for all kinds of reasons 1) a lot of it makes it into your meals 2) it reduces the efficacy of antibiotics by constantly exposing it to bacteria (allowing them to eventually become resistant).

Probably other reasons it's bad as well (I'm also not a doctor and just write code).

[vjerancrnjak]

Giving antibiotics to animals also makes them grow bigger.

It's billions of Petri dishes. It's a white swan in the making.

It's really a shame that now humans are not given antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistance, when humans do not even consume most of the antibiotics produced.

[kube-system]

Not all antibiotics and diseases are the same. It still makes sense to not overprescribe powerful antibiotics that humans use for human diseases. Even if agriculture is recklessly using cheap antibiotics in animals.

[culi]

you forgot one of the main reasons it's actually given. It completely breaks down their gut microbiome causing them to gain wait much much quicker

[yboris]

It's because they are close together in the factory farm. I don't think you need to consult what veterinarians say - seeing photos of how animals are treated should be enough for you to just stop consuming meat (if you "think about the wellbeing of the animals").

Consider watching Earthlings (2005) - http://www.nationearth.com/ - I'd say a must watch film for anyone who cares about animals.

[falcolas]

I hate to be that guy, but not all ranches.

Ranches surrounding me (I live in relatively rural Montana) don't even come close to resembling the kinds you mention. The cattle are given the run of hundreds of acres, and also they often graze from those fields, etc.

Yeah, there are a shitty minority of ranches that produce a large amount of meat in terrible conditions. But they are not the norm, not in my experience.

And for a tangent, I'd like also call out that it's not just beef being produced by ranchers. We're not just tossing carcasses in the landfills. We use the whole animal. Calcium, leather, feed, gelatin, medicine, etc.

[yboris]

You are going by your personal experience which is very dangerous. As far as I understand statistics (taken across the US), If I remember right, at least 97% of all meat comes from factory farms (depends on animal, this may not be aggregate across all animal types).

So, most people want to believe their meat comes from somewhere nice, but on average, basically all meat in the US comes from animals that are living in horrible conditions (I suspect living lives not worth living -- a life of suffering).

[falcolas]

I'd love to see your source for the 97% statistic, because it doesn't match with anything I know about it.

> So, most people want to believe their meat comes from somewhere nice

I have the ability to know mine is, because our grocery stores get their meat locally.

[myshpa]

https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estima...

"We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.2% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms."

[falcolas]

Thank you.

Being honest though, it's sus as fuck, and not just because of the source, or that these are "rough estimates" to use their terms.

A simple read through the spreadsheet shows some pretty odd (and significant) discrepancies. A single example: A row with "2500-4999" animals per farm has farm counts and "total animals" that amounts to over 6.5k animals per farm.

Also, note that CAFO - the farms we're (legitimately) concerned about - is not based solely on the animal counts†, though that's the only part of the definition that the "Sentience Institute" uses because "the public may consider it bad too".

It strikes me as straight up lying with numbers - presenting real numbers in a way which tells the story the institute wants to tell.

† "has a manmade ditch or pipe that carries manure or wastewater to surface water; or the animals come into contact with surface water that passes through the area where they’re confined."

[myshpa]

I would also recommend newer version named Dominion (2018). Hard to say which one is better. If unsure, watch both! :)

https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch

[zabzonk]

i am not a doctor, i am a programmer, i used to be a microbiologist. the big problem with stuffing domestic or wild animals or humans with antibiotics for no good reason (ie without testing if they actually have an infection that the antibiotic can or should treat) is that it encourages the development of antibiotic resistance in _all_ bacteria in the treated animal/human.

it's only been 100 years since the very first development of effective antibiotics. before this, bacterial diseases were deadly. if we go on with this misuse, they will become deadly again.