Animal Awareness / Factory Farming

Factory Farming: Animal Cruelty

Gone are the days when the majority of meat came from small farmers who provided some amount of care for their animals. Almost all animals are now raised in factory farms where most animals never see the light of day, know the smell of fresh air, never spread their wings, or are able to even turn around.

In one year, 2001, over 10 BILLION animals were killed just in the United States for food production.

You can help save many animals every single day without spending any money or taking up any of your time... just make a humane choice three meals a day. Become vegetarian or vegan.

Vegetarian: A person who does not consume meat.

Vegan: A person who does not consume or use any animal product including meat, milk, eggs, honey, leather, etc.

Serious Consequences of Factory Farming

The negative impacts of factory farming go far beyond the inhumane treatment of the animals. There are serious human health issues, severe environmental degradation, and it sustains global hunger.

Inhumane Treatment of the Animals

Chickens / Turkeys

Not only are small farms a thing of the past, but also gone are the days when chickens and turkeys would grow at a normal rate and roam freely on a farm before they were killed for their flesh. On a modern factory farm, chickens and turkeys bred for meat-consumption are called broilers. They are genetically engineered to grow to twice their normal size. Their small legs can barely hold the weight causing them to live in constant pain. They are jam packed into "grower houses" and have their beaks sliced off (while still conscious) with a hot blade to keep them from pecking at each other.

Due to extremely crowded conditions, they are often trampled over and crippled, causing many to die. The others are left to live with their fellow fowl that lay dead and decaying on the urine and feces soaked floors. The birds that survive this are forced into crates to be transported to slaughter by trucks that are open to the outdoor weather extremes; many die due to excessive weather conditions or starvation during transport.

After transport comes the inevitable slaughter. According to Kinship Circles, Facts About The Poultry & Egg Industries, "The breakneck production line (slaughter) begins with shackled birds slung upside down from a revolving rail. Their heads are plunged into electrified water bathes that merely paralyze them. Still cognizant, the birds proceed to mechanized throat-slashers that are notoriously imprecise. Many fall from the racks to wander dazed over blood-washed floors. Some birds remain fully conscious when they are pitched into feather-extracting tanks of scalding water. Workers call the boiled-alive birds 'redskins'." Both broiler chickens and egg-laying chickens are eventually slaughtered. Chickens raised to be egg-layers are considered low grade and their flesh is used for pet food.

Egg-laying hens live an equally horrible existence. They are packed into small wire cages called "battery cages". These cages cause the same suffering as the "grower houses" cause the broiler hens. Battery cages are usually only 15" wide and encase four to five birds. These severely cramped conditions are not only stressful but also causes painful rubbing of their skin from the wire cages. Hundreds of thousands of these hens live tightly packed into many rows that go as high as the ceiling and are as long as a football field. Their feces fall through the cage floor, onto the other hens below before falling to the ground.

The birds that do get out of the old rusted cages fall to the ground and live out their final days caught in the manure pits on the floor until they starve to death. The manure on the floor of these huge buildings is periodically bulldozed into piles. If the fallen hens live through being bulldozed, they often suffocate or get stuck in the manure pile.

The brutality suffered by these egg-laying hens has been documented by caring groups who openly go into these buildings and rescue the severely ill and dying birds. While there, they document the conditions by taking numerous photos and video. The images on this page were taken by Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV). Find out more about their 50+ of open rescues at www.openrescue.org.

Compassion Over Killing (COK) in Washington DC has also done several courageous undercover investigations documenting the conditions of these battery caged hens.

Egg-laying hens are starved for prolonged periods of time to cause them to "force molt", which shocks their body into an extra egg-laying cycle. "Forced molting" increases egg production, but is extremely stressful for the birds. It also causes illness, such as Salmonella.

Many animals are considered unusable "surplus animals." Kinship Circle states, "Every year 280 million male chicks - who don't lay eggs and aren't a profitable meat source - are tossed into garbage tubs or large plastic bags to be crushed into fertilizer."

Dairy Cows / Veal / Beef

As with chickens, cows are also divided into two groups. Those who are specifically used for their milk and those who are fattened up for their meat. Both groups are eventually slaughtered.

Dairy cows are kept in small stalls and are used for the milk excreted from their mammary glands that was intended for thier calves. They are given a growth hormone called Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). BGH causes the heifer to lactate more by enlarging her mammary glands to ten times larger than normal, which is painful due to the extra weight and from the infection that is caused. The only reason why this infection is not passed onto the people who drink the milk is because cows are routinely given antibiotics. Drinking milk leads to antibiotic resistance in humans, which causes antibiotics to not work anymore when you are sick. Visit our Factory Farming Impacts page to read the U.S. government's findings about the severe human health hazards this poses.

Often times the BGH causes mastitis in the cow's mammary glands. Heifers are kept constantly pregnant for the production of milk and are artificially inseminated. Then these mothers gestate for 9 months. Right after the birth, the calf is torn away and is used for veal production. Dairy cows continue this cycle for 3 to 4 years before they can no longer lactate. They are then slaughtered for their flesh as low-grade meat in pet food.

According to The American Heart Association, "Milk consumption is linked with heart disease, juvenile onset diabetes, asthma, allergies, cancer, high blood pressure and stroke." Humans do need calcium, but not animal calcium. Plant-derived calcium found in dark greens provides us with all of the nutrient that we need. Animal calcium actually causes calcium build-up in our bones, which leads to osteoporosis.

Baby calves are a product of the dairy industry. Female babies are used as dairy cows, male calves are used as veal. If a male calf is considered "unprofitable" he is slaughtered soon after birth. The other male calves are put into intensive confinement "veal crates". They are chained by their necks for the rest of their lives with no room to move. They are kept immobilized for "tender" flesh. They are denied the nutrients of their mother's milk and roughage in order to keep their flesh tender for slaughter. In order for this meat to have its white appearance, the calves are deprived of iron in their diet which causes them to suffer from anemia.

Cows intended for meat-consumption are raised by the beef industry. They are marked with hot iron brands as well as having chunks of their neck skin clipped away for easy identification. At first, the cows are kept on a range. Then they move to feedlots or auction. Therefore, the cows must be transported. This transportation takes place in trucks onto which these animals are tightly packed. This overcrowding causes many injuries, many are seriously injured to the point where they can no longer stand. The term for an animal that can no longer stand is a "downed animal." These animals are often kicked, prodded, and even pulled off of the trucks by their necks, oftentimes breaking their necks or inducing other injuries.

Once on the ground, these living, feeling creatures are left to die a long and painful death, instead of being humanely euthanized on the spot. The problem is that the food industry wants to get the most profit as possible from each cow's body. It is more cost-efficient for these downed animals to be dragged to slaughter than to be euthanized. This is a consistent practice in agribusiness.

The Downed Animal Protection Act (S. 267 and H.R. 1421) was written to enable "downed animals" to be humanely euthanized. When bills are first introduced to congress a version goes to each of the congressional houses with amendments attached. In this instance, a version of the 2002 Farm Bill (with amendments) was introduced to the House of Representatives and a version was introduced to the Senate. They separately discuss details in the bill, amend it as needed, and then have a vote. After the two congressional houses have each finalized their versions of the Farm Bill, then a small Conference Committee of 5-6 people reviews both versions to iron out the differences between them, which results in one cohesive Farm Bill. The version of the Farm Bill that the Conference Committee comes up with is the version that is then presented to the president who then chooses to either sign the bill into law or veto it, thus returning the bill back to congress.

The Downed Animal Amendment of the 2002 Farm Bill passed both the House and the Senate, but was stopped in the conference committee who was supposed to only iron out differences between the House and Senate version of the Farm Bill. Instead they took out the Downed Animal Amendment, which both sides of congress had already agreed upon.

If a cow survives the auction process and transportation, then it's on to slaughter. First, they are supposed to be stunned, rendering them unconscious during the slaughter process. Due to inappropriate training and the speed of the slaughter line, the stunning does not generally render them unconscious. While the cows are still alive, they are hung upside down by a back leg. All the while kicking to try to get free. They can hear the other cows inside screaming. They then have their throat slit. It takes over 10 minutes for them to bleed to death. During which time, they are already being skinned and dismembered.

Although a cow is used for meat-consumption, the skin (leather) is not just a by-product of the food process. Leather is a commodity all on its own. When people buy leather they are condoning the slaughter of cows just as the people who eat meat.

Pigs

Pigs are kind creatures that when free, work together to make nests for their families. Yet in modern factory farming, pigs resort to cannibalism. They actually will bite each other's tails off! Why? The pigs are packed into areas too small to move around. This is very uncomfortable for the pigs. They are held captive in this small, smelly, dirty and uncomfortable place for most of their existence. That is, unless they are breeding females who are kept in a gestation crate or a farrowing stall. Regardless of which crate they are caged in, for years they are refused any of their natural setting. No sun, no straw, no mud baths, no grass, no family.

Female pigs (or sows) are repeatedly impregnated, kept in 2 ft. wide gestation crates, which they cannot even turn around in, until they are about to give birth. Then they are moved to a farrowing stall, which keeps the mother lying on her side in order to deliver and feed her piglets until they are weaned. Afterwards, the sows are impregnated once again and left in a gestation crate. When the sow can no longer become pregnant, she is slaughtered and made into hotdogs and pepperoni.

The slaughter of pigs is an atrocity. Many pigs are too sick or injured to walk to the transport trucks. These Downed Animals currently do not have any protection under the law that would require humane euthanasia. Many are left to die a slow sickly death. Others are bulldozed, pushed, poked with electric prods, kicked, etc. to get them onto the truck for transportation to slaughter. Having been behind a truck hauling pigs to slaughter, we've witnessed the horrible sight. The truck was more like a large crate. Clearly visible were all of the pigs packed up to the walls of the truck. Fellow pigs were completely covered by one another literally being squished into each other.

When they arrive at the slaughterhouse, the pigs that survive the trip are hung up by their back leg, all the while squealing and kicking. Then most are improperly stunned by the poorly trained staff. They have a knife plunged into their neck in another attempt to kill them. While they are still conscious these poor creatures are thrown into boiling water to boil the hair off of their bodies. Basically, these pigs are boiled alive... so they are not only scalded to death, but drowned too!

Sanctuaries

There are many wonderful sanctuaries that take in farm animals and provide them with a comfortable and protected life. They are also a great resource for information in case you decide to rescue farm animals from their captivity and need advice on how to care for them.

Please visit these sites for further information:

Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary in Poolesville, Maryland
Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY and Orland, CA
United Poultry Concerns in Machipongo, Virginia