Cattle, fully slatted floor: VGT campaign, changing roles on the Mahü

2023-08-23 09:53:06

Farmer on the fully slatted concrete floor, which is otherwise reserved for fattening cattle, and the cattle in the soft bed, which in turn is only intended for humans

Vienna (OTS) – All over Austria, animal rights activists are going on the barricades against the fully slatted concrete floor in cattle fattening. The suffering of the animals on the hard floor with sharp-edged slats without straw bedding is obvious and is confirmed by science: almost all animals have painfully inflamed joints, as in the case of pigs, for which there is therefore an end to the fully slatted floor, albeit only in almost 2 decades, has been announced. With the cattle, however, everything should remain the same, there are no plans to abolish the fully slatted floor even in 2 decades. Does the industry think that such a floor would be comfortable for cattle? After all, this affects 70% of all bulls, heifers and oxen kept for the production of beef in Austria.

The VGT put the example to the test today during a campaign on Vienna’s Mariahilfer Strasse. The roles were switched. While the farmer sat down on a fully slatted cattle floor for 1 hour, an animal rights activist dressed as a calf lay down in the soft bed. The passers-by liked it. An elderly lady rightly said that too much meat was eaten, so that the husbandry conditions were geared towards cheap mass production. A child did not want to believe his mother that cattle really have to live on such a floor. The VGT appeals to the responsible politicians, the industry and trade to also give the fully slatted cattle floor an expiry date.

VGT Chairman DDr. Martin Balluch on this: “The legacy of dealing with so-called livestock, which dates back to the time of the industrialization of agriculture, must finally be eliminated. At that time, animal protection was not yet organized after it had been completely destroyed by the Third Reich. But now society is rethinking and is fundamentally questioning such housing conditions, such as the fully slatted floor without straw bedding. This is not how you should treat animals. It is enough to put yourself in the animal’s place, as demonstrated today in our ‘role reversal’ campaign, in order to empathize with the suffering. Even with cattle, as with pigs, the fully slatted floor has to end up in the dustbin of history.”

press photos ( : VGT.at)