New farm animal welfare standards

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2013:

Humane Farm Animal Care revised standards for raising cattle have since January 15,  2012 required farmers to use analgesia for pain control when conducting procedures such as castration.  “HFAC is the only national animal welfare organization to make pain control a key component of farm animal welfare certification standards.  We have been working to educate farmers and ranchers on how to implement the new standards,”  said HFAC founder Adele Douglass. Animal Health Australia on March 13,  2013 published proposed new rules for sheep and cattle handling which recommend that the use of dogs and electric prods “should be limited to the minimum necessary.”  Under the new rules,  to take effect in 2014,  dogs who habitually bite sheep and cattle would have to be muzzled. The Kentucky Board of Agriculture on March 27,  2012 approved livestock care standards which allow docking the tails of dairy cattle,  housing hens in battery cages,  and confining pregnant sows in gestation stalls. “The commission and commissioner are intent on merely rubber-stamping some of the worst forms of animal cruelty,  opposed by both veterinarians and the public,”  charged Humane Society of the U.S. representative Pam Rogers.