The process and effects of breeding, raising, using, and slaughtering animals.
This tag should be used for questions about the processes and effects of breeding, raising, using, and slaughtering animals.
Livestock animals include cows, pigs, chickens, horses, dogs, llamas, goats, rabbits, sheep, honeybees, and all other live animals kept for their labour, products of their labour, or products of their bodies.
Try to establish scope in all questions and answers. Livestock management practices vary considerably between countries and even within countries, so it's useful to clarify early which livestock industry is being discussed. If the question is about practices in a specific country, mention that.
Both intensive (ie. "factory farming") and extensive (ie. "pastured") animal farming are relevant to this tag. All use of animals for saleable products, no matter the size of the business, are included.
Common Practices in Livestock Industries
This is the tag to use when you have questions about common and accepted practices in the livestock industry. Some practices are governed by laws, and questions about those laws should also include the legislative tag. For questions about practices that are impacted by voluntary opt-in programs that allow usage of a specific label on product packaging, consider the labeling tag. When questions are about the experience and wellbeing of living animals in the livestock industry, from birth to slaughter, use the animal-welfare tag. Questions about animal survival rates before slaughter are also relevant here.
Effects and Consequences
For questions about how keeping livestock impacts the environment, both locally and globally, use the environment tag. This applies to all effects, whether intended, unintended, and/or unforeseen. For example, global warming, water contamination and antibiotic resistance are all effects on the environment.
Many environmental effects are anthropocentric. But if effects and consequences also have an impact on animal wildlife, use the wildlife tag.
Economics
When trying to gain a better understanding of the economic and financial functioning of the livestock industry, use the economics tag.
Add one of the following relevant tags if asking about specific saleable products of the livestock industry.
dairy-products eggs honey leather fur wool
Off-topic
Use the tag animal-experimentation for questions about animal testing and the use of living animals in vivisection and research.
When livestock are kept for private use and the products are not sold for profit, use the tag subsistence-farming.
Avoid using the outreach tag unless the question is specifically about the process of talking to people about veganism and vegetarianism. Although understanding the livestock industry often plays a big part in outreach, it's not useful to add the outreach tag to every question about livestock management.
