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The ultimate goal in animal experimentation is not necessarily to eliminate all experiments, but rather to establish a benign ethic for its practice. An interim ethic is described, which includes changes in current animal legislation, specifically with regard to the Animal Welfare Act. Paying attention to animal husbandry conditions and utilizing preference tests can go a long way in establishing a more humane practice of animal experimentation. Finally, the idea of pet keeping is offered as a model for treating experimental animals much as we would pets. The result would be a movement away from simply an instrumental and often harmful use of animals, to one which is based on the intrinsic value of animals.

The issue of animal sentience, particularly animal pain and suffering, is probably the most significant one in animal experimentation. Many experimental procedures cause significant harm for laboratory animals. After arguing for the reality of the harm caused to animals, this chapter offers specific suggestions on how to minimize this harm, which need to be more widely utilized. These include alternatives to the use of animals (particularly the 3Rs), refining current animal legislation, rigorous application of both pain scales and the use of drugs, improved animal husbandry conditions, and humane euthanasia, when it is necessary.

This chapter examines why colonists assumed that English livestock and animal husbandry practices would easily transfer to the New World. They also presumed that by raising livestock on lands that Indians seemingly did not use, the English could justify their legal claim to the territory. Despite early difficulties, livestock populations eventually flourished.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the geographical environment of Pre-Aryan India. It then discusses the emergence of pastoralism and agriculture, this is followed by a look at the development of the Indus valley civilization. This was the first urban civilization on the subcontinent, which was based on the agriculture and animal husbandry of the Indus flood-plain which appears to have been similar to that of recent centuries in the Indus valley.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the economic impact of refugee resettlement on agriculture. It then discusses agricultural yields and the attempt to revise the distribution of holdings, the agrarian policy of the Venizelos government, and the impact of agricultural settlement on animal husbandry.

A consideration of post-Roman land use concludes that the ‘fieldscapes’ of Roman Britain were often maintained despite some shift in emphasis towards pastoral production in the early Anglo-Saxon period. The Mid Saxon period saw considerable innovation in crop husbandry, processing, and storage, as well as a probable expansion of arable and a growing emphasis on bread wheat (implying widespread use of the heavy plough). New weeding and manuring regimes were also introduced, coinciding with the appearance of the first post-Roman communal crop-processing facilities, i.e. corn dryers, malting ovens, and watermills, the last usually associated with high-status centres. Animal husbandry changed too, moving from broad, ‘unstructured’ patterns of livestock management geared towards self-sufficiency, to more focused, closely managed practices geared towards producing both primary and secondary products. This may have been as much a response to the rise of monasteries as to the development of emporia and towns.

This chapter studies the convergence of the farmer and the sentimental ‘man of feeling’ in Burns's animal poems, as well as their role in displacing and mediating problems of the human world. Burns's early poems to farm animals (sheep and horses) are discussed in relation to contemporary views of stock breeding and animal husbandry, and related to the literature of agricultural improvement. The main body of the chapter studies his famous addresses ‘To a Mouse’ and ‘To a Louse’ in relation to themes of charity, social emulation, and upward mobility, giving a fully contextualized interpretation that offers new insights into the poem's sources.

This chapter describes the changing practices of animal ownership, fodder provisioning, and the production of pastoral space in the village and beyond in relation to the heterogeneous and stratified contexts of the residents. The livestock herds of villagers over two decades showed a shift toward lower numbers of the pasturing bullocks and a decreasing dependence upon the cow as a milch animal. The relative advantage of animal husbandry as a livelihood for the small landholders was intertwined with the state of common pastoral resources. The heterogeneity of fodder-provisioning practices among households differentiated by the ownership of private lands and the access to irrigation facilities has been delineated. The enterprise of animal husbandry could easily be extended beyond the village. Conflicts of interest arising from the gendered division of labour and control over land and other productive resources influences decisions about which animals to keep or gift and why.

Chapter 7 continues to explore agrarian change, by examining the means of intensification. As arable land became more restricted, and less favourable plots in dry regions came to be relied upon, late antique farmers resorted to increasingly intensive farming methods. This chapter argues that the crop monoculture, though often assumed, was rare to non-existent, and that the more common practice was a mixed agricultural regime of small-scale animal husbandry combined with intensive orchard and vine cropping with cereals squeezed into the matrix where possible, not dominating it, as has been presumed. The adaptation of new crops is proposed. Finally, the increasing use of irrigation (qanat and saqiya systems) implies great investment in agrarian structures both in terms of labour and money investment.

Chapter 5 looks at the functions of animals in Anglo-Saxon farming, and husbandry methods. It covers traction, dairying, meat and wool production, as well as eggs and other ‘minor’ products. It discusses animal housing, feeding, haymaking, breeding, herding, and especially pig pannage and identification. Beekeeping is treated separately.

Agricultural-pastoral people spread over the Indian subcontinent in many phases. Hunting-gathering, along with shifting cultivation, dominated all the moister tracts of this region. The pattern of resource use became grounded in a continual march of agriculture and pastoralism over territory held by food gatherers. The highest concentration of agricultural-pastoral populations was along the Gangetic plains. Buddhism and Jainism did not succeed in destroying the social hierarchy of Indian society then. The eight centuries from 500 bc to ad 300, which followed the colonization of the fertile lands of northern India, appear to have been characterized by the availability of large surpluses of agricultural production for activities outside food production. Elephant forests and hunting preserves brought in a new form of territorial control over living resources—control by the state. Protection to cattle has undoubtedly been significant in influencing the practices of mixed agriculture and animal husbandry, which are so characteristic of India.

This chapter examines the growth of agricultural production in the Greek city-states. It traces the evolutions and mutations of agriculture in the ancient Greek world as well as the consequences of these changes, first by discussing the so-called Mediterranean trilogy that comprised ancient Greek agriculture: grain, olives, and grapes. While cereals, grapes, and olives constituted the heart of agricultural production in ancient Greece, the role played by other products such as fig, vegetables, roses and other flowers, and honey is also considered. The chapter goes on to explore animal husbandry in the Greek city-states, focusing on the debate on “pastoralism” in the Early Iron Age, constraints in livestock raising, and the three main regional types of stock raising that extended from the southern Aegean to Thessaly, the Peloponnese, and the vast migratory areas of western Greece. Finally, it analyzes rangeland ecology and management during the period.

A combined analysis of faunal remains and macrolithic tools, reflecting meat and plant food consumption, was conducted on six multi-phase settlements in the Aisne valley (Picardy, France), dating to the late Linearbandkeramik (LBK). A new socio-economic model is proposed. A study of the house plans, phase and position in the settlements leads to distinctions between houses according to subsistence, with links made between the economic and symbolic importance of agricultural and hunting activities. Although all households were autonomous in their daily consumption, some surplus was produced. Long houses carried out more animal husbandry and cereal processing, while small houses are more linked to hunting and secondary animal exploitation. These differences between households can be interpreted in terms of sociology, identity and economy, which allows the examination of different facets of the same society, based on comparisons of the respective value of ‘farming’ and ‘hunting’ in LBK society.

Integrating zooarchaeological and ancient literary evidence for animals in Roman antiquity allows a more comprehensive account of livestock change to emerge. Such linkages facilitate understanding of the identification, development, spread, trade, and manipulation of domestic livestock breeds in the Roman Mediterranean. Biometric data from zooarchaeological remains indicate general ‘improvements’ and height increases occur among cattle, sheep, and pigs, but neither equally nor simultaneously across areas of the Mediterranean. Rather, select traits in animals, such as height, weight, stamina, strength, meat and fat content, among other characteristics and products, are variously manipulated during Roman times in efforts to breed livestock that best catered to the social and economic demands of different regions of the empire. This integrative approach provides a more holistic picture of animal use and economics during antiquity by highlighting the shrewdness, efficiency, adaptability, innovation, and regionalism of the Romans in terms of animal husbandry and breeding tactics.

This chapter discusses livestock and animal husbandry, emphasizing the difference between taming and domestication. Wild animals often can be tamed—taught to lose their fear of people. They tame best if captured young and raised apart from their species. Unlike simple taming, domestication comes through many generations of breeding animals in captivity. The husbandry of domestics almost invariably involves selection for ease of handling and a variety of other traits.

This chapter examines animal husbandry during the three hundred years of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt (332–30 BC). It focuses on the role of the settlers, mainly Greek military settlers known as cleruchs (klērouchoi), in promoting stock-rearing alongside the cereal production, which continued to represent the main agricultural wealth of Hellenistic Egypt. The settlers played a key role in the expansion of the agricultural area and in the development of crop production, which contributed to the success of the Ptolemaic economy. It is argued that animal husbandry was a further source of wealth, for both the settlers (in terms of income) and the crown (in terms of tax revenue). The development of animal husbandry also played a part in the progressive monetization of Egypt. This particular economic activity met the demands of the urban centres of Egypt, which grew and underwent economic development during this period.

This chapter reviews the theme of the making and remaking of village commons and reflects upon the commons as socially and ecologically variegated spaces that co-exist alongside private property. The debates in the village public sphere both connected and disconnected with the discourses of the state are explored. There were signs of a re-centring of the social margins in the course of daily struggles that entailed the use of the resources of the commons. The practice of animal husbandry within the village depended on territorially determined village common pastures that were administered by non-state village committees and distinguished from the formal, statutory village councils. The contexts of villagers, villages, and village commons indicated that the course of human lives and livelihoods generates objects and constructions, practices and discourses, that are instituted, contested, and transformed both within the intellectual realm and life-orders.

In the late eighteenth century, U.S. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins observed that Creeks maintained “beloved bear-grounds” near towns to protect bear habitat. However, Hawkins also noted, “as the cattle increase and the bear decrease, they are hunted in common.” Hawkins’ observations suggest a relationship between the frequency of the two species, and zooarchaeological assemblages from Creek towns support this hypothesis. A frequency index of bear and cattle remains indicate that as cattle increased over time, bear decreased precipitously. Creek hunters initially despised cattle, believing that beef would make the consumer slow and dim-witted. However, with the decline of the deerskin trade, Creek hunters turned to animal husbandry. The best graze for cattle was found in the “beloved bear grounds” and cattle husbandry quickly devastated native bear habitats. By the end of the eighteenth century, cattle displaced bears from their native habitat, and replaced bears in Creek life.

This chapter examines the social and technical conditions that both structured the Greek agricultural economy's permanent features and presided over the changes it experienced. It first considers the structures of real property, with a particular focus on the distribution of property, the size of the estates, and access to land and farming systems. It then discusses the crucial questions of risk management in an unpredictable environment, taking into account the different strategies employed by peasants to limit uncertainty caused by, for example, the extreme variability of the climate. It also analyzes tradition and innovation in agriculture and animal husbandry, the development of new lands that increased the area suitable for cultivation, and how general institutional conditions and social power relationships limited the transformations of agriculture, and hence an increase in yields in agricultural production. The chapter concludes with an analysis of changes in ancient agriculture and the market.