Animal Breeding
Animal breeding. It’s a phrase we’ve all heard, yet most of us rarely stop to think about what it actually means. If you look up its definition, you’ll find something like this: the selective mating of domestic and captive animals to enhance desirable traits such as growth rate, disease resistance, milk production, or reproductive efficiency. It sounds clinical, scientific, even harmless.
For most people, breeding is something we associate with dog and cat breeds. “She’s a Golden Retriever-Poodle mix.” “He’s a Persian cat.” It’s simply a normal process, something breeders and veterinarians handle. We hardly ever think beyond that.
Most of us know that breeding is also the foundation of modern animal agriculture. Every cow raised for dairy, every chicken raised for eggs or meat, every pig, sheep, turkey, or goat exists because humans have deliberately selected and reproduced animals to maximize what they can produce for us.
Over the past century, this selective breeding has dramatically transformed animals. Dairy cows today produce several times more milk than they did decades ago. Modern laying hens produce around 250–300 eggs each year, compared with the far lower numbers, about 10–20 laid by their wild ancestors. Broiler chickens have been bred to grow extraordinarily fast, reaching high weights in a fraction of the time it once took.
These changes are often celebrated as agricultural success stories. But they come at a cost.
Scott, my wonderful friend who works at a farm animal sanctuary that rescues animals raised for meat and dairy, tells me that none of the animals are bred for their longevity, rather only for human purposes.
He says that a lot of male cows at the sanctuary die earlier because they are bred to be huge and end up developing joint issues. Cornish chickens have to be given a strict diet and they commonly suffer from skeletal disorders, heart problems, and metabolic diseases because their bodies struggle to support the rapid growth we’ve engineered into them. It turns out the pigs need sunscreen because we have bred them to have light colored meat and the sheep have been bred to grow unnaturally heavy fleeces that require human shearing because they can no longer shed their wool.
During my time at this sanctuary, I had the chance to meet many of these animals- cows, goats, pigs, sheep, ducks, turkeys and chicken after they had been rescued from the agricultural system. It was beautiful to watch chickens experience open space, sunlight, and safety instead of crowded, cramped unsanitary sheds.
But it was also heartbreaking. Even after rescue, many of them still suffered from the bodies we had designed for them. Their genetics had been shaped for maximum meat production, not long-term health. Freedom could not undo the damage that selective breeding had already written into their bodies.
When we optimize animals for profit, their welfare inevitably becomes secondary. But beyond the suffering caused by breeding, there is another aspect that receives far less attention: the breeding process itself.
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We casually say that animals are “bred,” but what does that actually involve?
When it comes to breeding, reproduction is not left to the animals. Semen is collected from males through forceful human intervention. Females are restrained using different mechanisms so they cannot move while they are artificially inseminated. The procedures vary between species, but the common thread is the same: reproduction happens forcibly by human practices that are far from humane, and are not by the animals’ choice.
These reproductive interventions occur with cows, pigs, sheep, goats, turkeys, dogs, cats and other pets, and even honeybees: all animals that we use, or perhaps, abuse. In other words, animal breeding is sexual exploitation. Animals do not have the ability to give us their consent. But if they could, would they agree to be sexually exploited?
People tend to compare animal breeding to breeding plants, which is also a common practice in modern agriculture. But plants and animals are fundamentally different. And the breeding process is different too since A, plants are not sentient whereas animals are capable of experiencing fear, stress, and pain. And B, plants are asexual reproducers, unlike animals who sexually reproduce.
We live in a society and world that teaches us to condemn sexual exploitation. We believe that no individual should have their reproductive system controlled against their will. For me, that moral principle doesn’t end at the boundary of our own species.
I am a feminist. I believe we have no absolute right to shove our hands into the private parts of female beings to forcefully artificially inseminate them. I equally support masculinism. We also have no absolute right to forcefully extract semen from male beings simply because doing so is profitable. Whether the victim is a human or non-human animal, I believe bodily autonomy matters.
That is one of the reasons I am vegan. I don’t buy animals for food. I don’t buy their milk, eggs, wool, leather, or any product that depends on treating their bodies as commodities.
Most of us will never witness artificial insemination on a dairy farm or semen collection in a breeding facility. These procedures happen behind closed doors, far from the supermarket shelves or clothing and pet stores where the animals or final products are sold.
But they happen because we keep creating demand. Every purchase of animal products helps sustain the system that requires animals to be bred into existence over and over again.
The way we consume and use animals today is incompatible with natural reproduction. Modern animal agriculture exists because billions of animals are deliberately bred into existence every year. If we truly want to end this cycle, we need to stop contributing to the industries that depend on breeding them for profit.
If we oppose exploitation when it happens to members of our own species, perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves why we not only accept it when it happens to everyone else, but also actively fund it. If we proudly call ourselves feminists, I believe it’s worth reflecting on whether our actions fully align with our values.
The violence may be hidden from view, but it is not hidden from the animals who experience it. I hope we will all choose not to support systems that rely on the reproductive exploitation of animals.
