The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past, which are still portrayed in children’s books, have been replaced by windowless metal sheds, wire cages, gestation crates, and other confinement systems—what is now known as “factory farming.” Farmed animals have no federal legal protection from horrific abuses that would be illegal if they were inflicted on dogs or cats: neglect, mutilations, and drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling, transport through all weather extremes, and inhumane slaughter. Yet farmed animals are no less sensitive, intelligent, or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs or cats whom we cherish as companions.

Deprivation and Disease
The factory-farming system of modern agriculture strives to produce the most meat, milk, and eggs as quickly and cheaply as possible—and in the smallest amount of space possible. Cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, rabbits, and other animals are kept in small cages or stalls, where they are often unable to turn around. They are deprived of exercise so that all their energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk for human consumption. They are fed drugs that fatten them faster, and they are genetically manipulated to grow faster or produce much more milk or eggs than they would naturally.

Because crowding creates an atmosphere that welcomes disease, animals on factory farms are fed and sprayed with huge amounts of pesticides and antibiotics, which remain in their bodies and are passed on to the people who consume them, creating serious human health hazards. While the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have called the use of antibiotics in this manner of “serious emerging concern,” the industry simply could not continue to raise billions of animals per year in such cramped, filthy conditions without the drugs that allow animals to survive conditions that would otherwise kill them.(1)



Chickens
Chickens are inquisitive animals, and in their natural surroundings, they form friendships and social hierarchies, recognize one another and develop pecking orders, love and care for their young, and enjoy full lives that include dust-bathing, making nests, and roosting in trees. On factory farms, however, chickens are denied these activities and suffer because of it.

Laying hens live in battery cages stacked tier upon tier in huge warehouses. Confined seven or eight to a cage, they don’t have enough room to turn around or spread even one wing. Conveyor belts bring in food and water and carry away eggs. Farmers often induce greater egg production through “forced molting”: Chickens are denied food and light for days, which leads to feather and weight loss.(2)

To prevent stress-induced behaviors caused by extreme crowding—such as pecking their cagemates to death—hens are typically kept in semi-darkness, and the ends of their sensitive beaks are cut off with hot blades without any painkillers. The wire mesh of the cages rubs their feathers and skin off and causes their feet to become crippled. Chickens can live for more than a decade, but laying hens on factory farms are exhausted and unable to produce as many eggs by the time they are 2 years old, so they are slaughtered.(3,4) More than 100 million “spent” hens die in slaughterhouses each year.(5) Ninety-eight percent of the egg industry’s hens are confined to cages on factory farms.(6)

More than 9 billion “broiler” chickens are raised in sheds each year.(7) Artificial lighting is manipulated to keep the birds eating as often as possible. To keep up with demand and to reduce production costs, genetic selection calls for big birds and fast growth (it now takes only six weeks to “grow out” a chick to “processing” weight), which causes extremely painful joint and bone conditions.(8) Undercover investigations into the “broiler” chicken industry have revealed that birds routinely suffer from dehydration, respiratory diseases, bacterial infections, heart attacks, crippled legs, and other serious ailments.

At the slaughterhouse, chickens are hung upside down, their legs are forced into metal shackles, their throats are cut, and they are immersed in scalding-hot water in defeathering tanks. They are often conscious throughout the entire process. Click here to read more about an undercover investigation at a KFC supplier’s slaughterhouse, where workers were caught on video stomping on chickens, kicking them, and violently slamming them against floors and walls.



Cattle
Cows who are free to roam pastures and care for their young form life-long friendships with one another and have demonstrated the ability to be vain, hold grudges, solve problems, and play games.(9) But cows raised for the meat and dairy industries are often far removed from lush pastures and nursing calves.

Cattle raised for beef may be born in one state, fattened in another, and slaughtered in yet another. They are fed an unnatural diet of high-bulk grains and other “fillers,” which can include expired dog and cat food, poultry feces, and leftover restaurant food.(10) They are castrated, their horns are ripped out, and they have third-degree burns inflicted on them (branding)—all without any painkillers. During transportation, cattle are crowded onto trucks, where they suffer from trampling and temperature extremes and lack food, water, and veterinary care. At the slaughterhouse, cattle may be hoisted upside down by their hind legs and dismembered while they are still conscious. The kill rate in a typical slaughterhouse is 400 animals per hour, and “the line is never stopped simply because an animal is alive,” according to one slaughterhouse worker.(11)

Calves raised for veal are the male offspring of dairy cows. They’re taken from their mothers within a few days of birth, and they are chained in stalls that have slatted floors and are only 2 feet wide and 6 feet long.(12) Since their mothers’ milk is used for human consumption, the calves are fed a milk substitute that is designed to help them gain at least 2 pounds a day.(13) The diet is purposely low in iron so that the calves become anemic and their flesh stays pale and tender.(14)





Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance. ~George Bernard Shaw

Pigs
Pigs are very clean animals who take to the mud primarily to cool off and evade flies. They are just as friendly and gregarious as dogs, and according to Professor Donald Broom at the Cambridge University Veterinary School, “They have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.”(15) Mother pigs on factory farms in the U.S. spend most of their lives confined to crates that measure 7 feet long and 2 feet wide, barely larger than the pigs themselves.(16) They display signs of extreme boredom and stress, such as biting the bars of their cages and gnashing their teeth.(17) Their piglets are taken away three weeks after birth and packed into pens until they are singled out to be raised for breeding or for meat.(18) Like chickens and turkeys, pigs are genetically manipulated and pumped full of drugs, and many become crippled under their own weight. Although pigs are naturally affable and social animals, the confinement of these crowded pens causes neurotic behaviors such as cannibalism and tail-biting, so farmers cut off piglets’ tails without any painkillers and use pliers to break off the ends of piglets’ teeth.(19)

Pigs are transported through all weather extremes, often freezing to the sides of transport trucks in leading pig-slaughtering states such as Iowa and Nebraska, or dying from dehydration in states such as North Carolina. According to industry statistics, more than 1 million pigs die en route to slaughter each year.(20)

At the slaughterhouse, improper stunning means that many hogs reach the scalding-hot water baths—which are intended to soften their skin and remove their hair—while they are still conscious.(21) USDA inspection records documented 14 humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, including finding hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.”(22) A PETA investigation found that workers at an Oklahoma farm were killing pigs by slamming the animals’ heads against the floor and beating them with a hammer.(23) At a Hormel supplier in Iowa, PETA investigators witnessed rampant cruelty to animals, including that workers beat pigs with metal gate rods and jabbed clothespins into pigs’ eyes and faces.

Environmental and Health Concerns
Factory farms are harmful to the environment as well as being cruel to animals. The 3 trillion pounds of waste produced by factory-farmed animals each year are usually sprayed on fields, and they subsequently run off into waterways—along with the drugs and bacteria that they contain.(24) According to the EPA, agricultural runoff is the number one source of water pollution.(25)

Two-thirds of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food or to grow grain to feed them.(26) Chickens, pigs, cattle, and other animals raised for food are the primary consumers of water in the U.S.—a single pig consumes 21 gallons of drinking water per day, while a cow on a dairy farm drinks as much as 50 gallons daily.(27,28) It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of cow flesh, whereas it takes about 180 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of whole-wheat flour.(29)

Food-related illnesses affect more than 76 million people annually and kill more than 5,000.(30) Consumer Reports found that two-thirds of chickens studied were infected with either salmonella or campylobacter or both.(31) Eggs pose a salmonella threat to approximately one out of every 50 people each year in some parts of the U.S.(32) Potentially deadly E. coli bacteria sickens more than 62,000 people each year, and the USDA reports that most of the cattle slaughtered for food in the U.S. are likely infected with it.(33)

What You Can Do
Support legislation that abolishes battery cages, veal crates, and intensive-confinement systems. Florida and Arizona have banned the cramped gestation crates used on hog farms, and Michigan farmers have until 2019 to follow suit.(34,35,36) The United Kingdom prohibits the use of gestation crates and veal crates.(37,38) The European Union is phasing out the use of battery cages as of 2012.(39)

The best way to save animals from the misery of factory farming is to stop consuming meat, dairy foods, and eggs. Veganism means eating for life: yours and animals.’ Call 1-888-VEG-FOOD or visit GoVeg.com for a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit.







Resources
1) Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza, “Drug-resistant Infections Lurk in the Meat We Eat,” Associated Press, 29 Dec. 2009.
2) Joy A. Mench and Paul B. Siegel, “Poultry,” South Dakota State University, College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, 11 Jul. 2001.
3) Molly Snyder Edler, “Chicken Love Leads to Book Deal,” OnMilwaukee.com, 26 Sep. 2002.
4) Ryan A. Meunier et al., “Commercial Egg Production and Processing,” Purdue University Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 4 Apr. 2003.
5) Barbara Olejnik, “Dwindling Spent Hen Disposal Outlets Causes Concern,” Poultry Times 15 Sep. 2003.
6) ”United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg Laying Flocks,” United Egg Producers 2003.
7) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Chicken Meat, Slaughtered/Head (1,000),” FAOSTAT Database, 2008.
8) Cindy Skrzycki, “Old Rules on Poultry Categories May Fly the Coup,” The Washington Post 7 Oct. 2003.
9) Rosamund Young, The Secret Life of Cows (Lancashire: Farming Books and Video, 2003).
10) Elizabeth Weise, “Consumers May Have a Beef With Cattle Feed,” USA Today 10 Jun. 2003.
11) Joby Warrick, “‘They Die Piece by Piece’; In Overtaxed Plants, Humane Treatment of Cattle Is Often a Battle Lost,” The Washington Post 10 Apr. 2001.
12) Tammy L. Terosky et al., “Effects of Individual Housing Design and Size on Special-Fed Holstein Veal Calf Growth Performance, Hematology, and Carcass Characteristics,” Journal of Animal Science 75 (1997): 1697-703.
13) John M. Smith, “Raising Dairy Veal,” Ohio State University, information adapted from the Guide for the Care and Production of Veal Calves, 4th ed., 1993, American Veal Association, Inc.
14) ”Top New York Restaurants Stop Serving White Veal,” Reuters, 6 Jul. 2000.
15) ”New Slant on Chump Chops,” Cambridge Daily News 29 Mar. 2002.
16) Marc Kaufman, “In Pig Farming, Growing Concern; Raising Sows in Crates Is Questioned,” The Washington Post 18 Jun. 2001.
17) Kaufman “In Pig Farming, Growing Concern; Raising Sows in Crates Is Questioned.”
18) William G. Luce et al., “Managing the Sow and Litter,” Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Mar. 1995.
19) Luce et al.
20) John Goihl, “Transport Losses of Market Hogs Studied” Feedstuffs 28 Jan. 2008.
21) Warrick.
22) Warrick.
23) Marc Kaufman, “Ex-Pig Farm Manager Charged With Cruelty,” The Washington Post 9 Sep. 2001.
24) Amy Ellis Nutt, “In Soil, Water, Food, Air,” Star-Ledger 8 Dec. 2003.
25) U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
26) Ruben Lubowski et al., “Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2002,” Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-14), U.S. Department of Agriculture, 14 May 2006.
27) Theo van Kempen, “Whole Farm Water Use,” North Carolina State University Swine Extension, Jul. 2003.
28) Rick Grant, “Water Quality and Requirements for Dairy Cattle,” NebGuide, Cooperative Extension, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1996.
29) Marcia Kreith, “Water Inputs in California Food Production,” Water Education Foundation, 27 Sept. 1991.
30) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Foodborne Illness,” 10 Jan. 2005.
31) ”How Safe Is That Chicken? Most Tested Broilers Were Contaminated,” Consumer Reports Jan 2010.
32) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, “Salmonella enteritidis,” 13 Oct. 2005.
33) Julie Vorman, “Raw Ground Beef Often Tainted With E. Coli,” Reuters, 1 Mar. 2000.
34) Alicia Caldwell and Anita Kumar, “Smoking Limited, Hog Crates Enlarged,” St. Petersburg Times 6 Nov. 2002.
35) Marlys Miller, “Arizona Voters Pass Proposition 204,” Pork 8 Nov. 2004.
36) Brendan Howard, “Michigan Lawmakers Pass Farm-Animal Welfare Bill,” DVM Magazine 2 Oct. 2009.
37) John J. McGlone, “Current Status of Housing and Penning Systems for Sows,” Pork Industry Institute, Texas Tech University, May 2002.
38) “The Cost of Posh Nosh,” BBC News, 30 May 2000.
39) Christopher Barclay, “Battery Hens,” House of Commons Library, 18 Feb. 2009.

Information courtesty of:site.