Animal slaughter in the context of Selective breeding

Animal welfare is the quality of life and overall well-being of animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity, disease, immunosuppression, behavior, physiology, and reproduction, although there is debate about which of these best indicate animal welfare.

Respect for animal welfare is often based on the belief that nonhuman animals are sentient and that consideration should be given to their well-being or suffering, especially when they are under the care of humans. These concerns can include how animals are slaughtered for food, how they are used in scientific research, how they are kept (as pets, in zoos, farms, circuses, etc.), and how human activities affect the welfare and survival of wild species.

A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Many sources of fertilizer exist, both natural and industrially produced. For most modern agricultural practices, fertilization focuses on three main macro nutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) with occasional addition of supplements like rock flour for micronutrients. Farmers apply these fertilizers in a variety of ways: through dry or pelletized or liquid application processes, using large agricultural equipment, or hand-tool methods.

Historically, fertilization came from natural or organic sources: compost, animal manure, human manure, harvested minerals, crop rotations, and byproducts of human-nature industries (e.g. fish processing waste, or bloodmeal from animal slaughter). However, starting in the 19th century, after innovations in plant nutrition, an agricultural industry developed around synthetically created agrochemical fertilizers. This transition was important in transforming the global food system, allowing for larger-scale industrial agriculture with large crop yields.

Culling is the process of segregating organisms from a group according to desired or undesired characteristics. In animal breeding, it is removing or segregating animals from a breeding stock based on a specific trait. This is done to exaggerate desirable characteristics, or to remove undesirable characteristics by altering the genetic makeup of the population. For livestock and wildlife, culling often refers to killing removed animals based on their characteristics, such as their sex or species membership, or as a means of preventing infectious disease transmission.

In fruits and vegetables, culling is the sorting or segregation of fresh harvested produce into marketable lots, with the non-marketable lots being discarded or diverted into food processing or non-food processing activities. This usually happens at collection centres located at, or close to farms.

Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. A person who practices vegetarianism is known as a vegetarian.

Vegetarianism may be adopted for various reasons. Many people object to eating meat out of respect for sentient animal life. Such ethical motivations have been codified under various religious beliefs as well as animal rights advocacy. Other motivations for vegetarianism are health-related, political, environmental, cultural, aesthetic, economic, taste-related, or relate to other personal preferences. Vegans are regularly also described as vegetarians, especially by carnists.

A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Many sources of fertilizer exist, both natural and industrially produced. For most modern agricultural practices, fertilization focuses on three main macro nutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) with occasional addition of supplements like rock flour for micronutrients. Farmers apply these fertilizers in a variety of ways: through dry or pelletized or liquid application processes, using large agricultural equipment, or hand-tool methods.

Historically, fertilization came from natural or organic sources: compost, animal manure, human manure, harvested minerals, crop rotations, and byproducts of human-nature industries (e.g. fish processing waste, or bloodmeal from animal slaughter). However, starting in the 19th century, after innovations in plant nutrition following Justus von Liebig's discoveries, an agricultural industry developed around synthetically created agrochemical fertilizers. This transition was important in transforming the global food system, allowing for larger-scale industrial agriculture with large crop yields.

In livestock agriculture and the meat industry, a slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir (/ˈæbətwɑːr/ ), is a facility where livestock animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a meat-packing facility.

Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is not intended for human consumption are sometimes referred to as knacker's yards or knackeries. This is where animals are slaughtered that are not fit for human consumption or that can no longer work on a farm, such as retired work horses.

A butcher is a skilled tradesperson who specialises in meatcutting, breaking down animal carcasses into primal cuts, preparation and retailing of meat, and sometimes slaughtering animals, or participates within any combination of these tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments. A butcher may be employed by supermarkets, grocery stores, butcher shops and fish markets, slaughter houses, or may be self-employed.

Butchery is an ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the domestication of livestock; its practitioners formed guilds in England as far back as 1272. Since the 20th century, many countries and local jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers in order to ensure quality, safety, and health standards but not all butchers have formal certification or training. Trade qualification in English-speaking countries is often earned through an apprenticeship although some training organisations also certify their students. In Canada, once a butcher is trade qualified, they can learn to become a master butcher (Fleishmaster).

Speciesism (/ˈspiːʃiːˌzɪzəm, -siːˌzɪz-/) is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions. Some specifically define speciesism as discrimination or unjustified treatment based on an individual's species membership, while others define it as differential treatment without regard to whether the treatment is justified or not. Richard D. Ryder, who coined the term, defined it as "a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species". Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals in exploitative ways which is pervasive in the modern society. Studies from 2015 and 2019 suggest that people who support animal exploitation also tend to have intersectional bias that encapsulates and endorses racist, sexist, and other prejudicial views, which furthers the beliefs in human supremacy and group dominance to justify systems of inequality and oppression.

As a term, speciesism first appeared during a protest against animal experimentation in 1970. Philosophers and animal rights advocates state that speciesism plays a role in the animal–industrial complex, including in the practice of factory farming, animal slaughter, blood sports (such as bullfighting, cockfighting and rodeos), the taking of animals' fur and skin, and experimentation on animals, as well as the refusal to help animals suffering in the wild due to natural processes, and the categorization of certain animals as alien, non-naturalized, feral and invasive giving then the justification to their killing or culling based on these classifications.

Stunning is the process of rendering animals immobile or unconscious, with or without killing the animal, when or immediately prior to slaughtering them for food.

In historical Chilean agriculture, an inquilino was a laborer who was indebted to a landlord and allowed to establish a farm on certain portions of the landlord's property, typically in marginal lands to deter intruders. In return, the inquilino worked without salary for the landlord. These inquilinos played a crucial role in tasks such as livestock gathering (rodeo) and slaughter. In regions focused on wheat production, the responsibilities of inquilinos increased as the Chilean wheat cycle progressed from the 18th century onwards.

The inquilinaje institution, which characterized a significant part of Chilean agriculture, was abolished by the Chilean land reform during the 1960s and early 1970s. Historian Mario Góngora has conducted extensive research on the history of inquilinos. In modern Spanish, the word "inquilino" carries the same meaning as the English term "tenant".

In animal husbandry, feed conversion ratio (FCR) or feed conversion rate is a ratio or rate measuring of the efficiency with which the bodies of livestock convert animal feed into the desired output. For dairy cows, for example, the output is milk, whereas in animals raised for meat (such as beef cows, pigs, chickens, and fish) the output is the flesh, that is, the body mass gained by the animal, represented either in the final mass of the animal or the mass of the dressed output. FCR is the mass of the input divided by the output (thus mass of feed per mass of milk or meat). In some sectors, feed efficiency, which is the output divided by the input (i.e. the inverse of FCR), is used. These concepts are also closely related to efficiency of conversion of ingested foods (ECI).

The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is a fusion of primary (agriculture) and secondary (industry) activity and hard to characterize strictly in terms of either one alone. The greater part of the meat industry is the meat packing industry – the segment that handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals such as poultry, cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock.

A great portion of the ever-growing meat branch in the food industry involves intensive animal farming in which livestock are kept almost entirely indoors or in restricted outdoor settings like pens. Many aspects of the raising of animals for meat have become industrialized, even many practices more associated with smaller family farms, e.g. gourmet foods such as foie gras. This heavy industrialization leads to an outsized environmental impact, responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, land use change and degradation, and water, air and soil pollution.

Some people do not eat various specific foods and beverages in conformity with various religious, cultural, legal or other societal prohibitions. Many of these prohibitions constitute taboos. Many food taboos and other prohibitions forbid the meat of a particular animal, including mammals (such as rodents), reptiles, amphibians, fish, molluscs, crustaceans and insects, which may relate to a disgust response being more often associated with meats than plant-based foods. Some prohibitions are specific to a particular part or excretion of an animal, while others forgo the consumption of plants or fungi.

Some food prohibitions can be defined as rules, codified by religion or otherwise, about which foods, or combinations of foods, may not be eaten and how animals are to be slaughtered or prepared. The origins of these prohibitions are varied. In some cases, they are thought to be a result of health considerations or other practical reasons; in others, they relate to human symbolic systems.

United states price $19.40 per pound to $29.99 per pound all calves weighting 300 pounds to 1000 pounds do to foreign exchange rate

Feeder cattle, in some countries or regions called store cattle, are young cattle mature enough either to undergo backgrounding or to be fattened in preparation for slaughter. They may be steers (castrated males) or heifers (females who have not dropped a calf). The term often implicitly reflects an intent to sell to other owners for fattening (finishing). Backgrounding occurs at backgrounding operations, and fattening occurs at a feedlot. Feeder calves are less than 1 year old; feeder yearlings are between 1 and 2 years old. Both types are often produced in a cow-calf operation. After attaining a desirable weight, feeder cattle become finished cattle that are sold to a packer (finished cattle are also called fattened cattle, fat cattle, fed cattle, or, when contrasted with carcasses, live cattle). Packers slaughter the cattle and sell the meat in carcass boxed form.

Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, freshwater fish, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. A person who practices vegetarianism is known as a vegetarian.

Vegetarianism may be adopted for various reasons. Many people object to eating meat out of respect for sentient animal life. Such ethical motivations have been codified under various religious beliefs as well as animal rights advocacy. Other motivations for vegetarianism are health-related, political, environmental, cultural, aesthetic, economic, taste-related, or relate to other personal preferences.

Fresh food is food which has not been preserved and has not spoiled yet. For vegetables and fruits, this means that they have been recently harvested and treated properly postharvest; for meat, it has recently been slaughtered and butchered; for fish, it has been recently caught or harvested and kept cold.

Dairy products are fresh and will spoil quickly. Thus, fresh cheese is cheese which has not been dried or salted for aging. Sour cream may be considered "fresh" (crème fraîche).