The Odds Againest Us
Lauren Bills
The majority of farm animals in the United States are now raised on large-scale, industrialized farms. Treated as mere production units, these "food animals" are forced to endure months, even years, of confinement or overcrowding.Confined in small cages or crates, laying hens, veal calves and breeding sows are prevented from even turning around or stretching their limbs.Barely given enough room to move, turkeys and chickens are crammed by the thousands into large, filthy warehouses.During their exhausting lives as milk producers, dairy cows are made to endure confinement, forced births, unnatural feeds, and painful infections.Crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden holding pens, most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots. Farm animals who survive their time "in production" suffer even more torment during transportation and marketing.During transport, animals are severely overcrowded and endure stress, inadequate ventilation and injuries. Additionally, thousands die every year in transport-related accidents.Farm animals can be legally confined on trucks for up to 36 hours without food or water and are exposed to all weather conditions.
Every year, tens of thousands of animals become so sick or injured that they cannot even walk. Called "downers" by the industry, these animals are dragged to slaughter or abandoned and left to suffer on stockyard "dead piles."At the slaughterhouse, frightened animals are kicked, hit with canes and shocked with electric prods to herd them to the kill floor.Stunning is not legally required for most farm animals. (Poultry, who comprise over 90 percent of "food animals," are not covered under The Humane Slaughter Act.) Even when stunning is required, industry reports indicate an alarming failure rate. Standard slaughter practices, combined with gross negligence, result in immense pain and suffering for millions of animals.Speed, not humane consideration, guides the slaughter process. Thousands of animals are dismembered or dropped into a scalding tank while they are still conscious.Most people are unaware of the enormous suffering farm animals endure to produce meat, milk and eggs. When Americans do learn about the ways in which animals are raised for food, they are often appalled by the cruelty these beings are forced to endure. In fact, public polls on factory farming practices reveal that over 70 percent of Americans are opposed to intensive confinement operations. Every year, more and more people are directly stopping farm animal suffering by choosing a vegetarian diet.
Egg-laying hens are among the most abused of all farm animals.On factory farms, four or more hens are forced to live inside tiny wire enclosures called battery cages. In these confines, the hens are unable to stretch their wings or legs, fulfill social needs or engage in natural behaviors.Constantly rubbing against the wire of battery cages, hens suffer severe feather loss and their bodies become covered with bruises and abrasions.To prevent injuries caused by excessive pecking, a result of unnatural, overcrowded conditions, chickens' beaks are seared off with a hot blade.In order to shock their bodies into another egg-laying cycle when production declines, the hens are denied food, water and light for up to two weeks. This cruel process is known as forced molting.Laying hens are considered "spent" after only one year. No longer useful for egg production, these exhausted animals are commonly slaughtered for soups, potpies, pet food, and other low-grade chicken products.
Every year, approximately 81 million pigs in the United States are forced to spend their lives behind bars, packed into small concrete or metal pens or crowded by the thousands into enormous warehouses.Breeding sows commonly endure three to four years of intensive confinement and live most of their lives in two-foot wide steel "gestation" crates.Immobilized and separated from her babies, a breeding sow's only contact with her young is through the bars of a crate.After two to three weeks, the piglets are taken away from their mothers. Their tails are docked, their ears are notched and they are raised in crowded "finishing" pens until they reach slaughter weight at about six months of age. The sow is then re-impregnated and the cruel and exhausting cycle continues.Born on the open range, many beef cattle are forced to fend for themselves for the first months of their lives. Denied adequate shelter and veterinary care, these young animals are often exposed to inclement weather and extreme temperatures and suffer through injury and illness without medical attention.Like other factory farmed animals, cattle are mutilated several times during their lives. Among the painful procedures they typically endure, usually without anesthesia, are dehorning and castration. For identification purposes, the animals are also routinely branded with hot irons.Eventually moved from pastures to feedlots, most beef cattle spend the rest of their short lives within the confines of filthy and overcrowded holding pens. Forced to breathe noxious fumes and lay in mud and waste, the cattle become susceptible to respiratory disease and lameness.
Fed an unnaturally rich diet supplemented with growth hormones, antibiotics and large amounts of protein, an average, 800-pound steer is often fattened and ready to leave the feedlot six months after his arrival. At this point, he has consumed about 5,000 pounds of feed and gained approximately 600 pounds.Slaughtered at about fourteen to sixteen months of age, beef cattle only live for a small fraction of their natural 18 to 22- year lifespan.Forced to produce ten times more milk than they would in nature, most dairy cows endure an exhausting existence of continuous breeding and milk production. As a result, dairy cows frequently suffer from painful udder infections, lameness and other ailments.In the name of increased milk production and profit, many dairy cows are injected with Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), a genetically engineered hormone known to cause birth defects in calves. The drug, which was approved by the FDA, was banned in Europe and Canada.Although they can live for more than 20 years in a healthy environment, dairy cows are sent to slaughter when their milk production declines at four or five years of age.Depleted of calcium after years of heavy milk production, worn- out dairy cows often slip and fall en route to slaughter, or are so badly injured, diseased or weak they are unable to walk. Every year, thousands of dairy cows become "downers," animals too sick or injured to even stand.While it is possible that some free-range hens may be given more space than their battery- caged sisters, there are no uniform standards that define how these chickens must be housed. Producers who claim to keep hens in spacious environments may simply crowd the birds in cages slightly larger than those used at typical egg factories.Regardless of how chickens are raised, death is nearly always an inevitable part of egg production. When egg production wanes, the vast majority of layers are slaughter after one to two years. Additionally, at hatcheries from which most layers come, unwanted male chicks, unable to produce eggs or grow fast enough to be raised for meat, are immediately discarded by the most inhumane means.
Whether they are factory farmed or raised according to organic or free-range agricultural practices, nearly all "food animals" are subjected to same exceedingly stressful and cruel transportation and handling practices when sent to slaughter. No matter from where the animals come, the same horrors await them on kill floors throughout the nation.
Work Cited
www.lemondrop.com
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/resources/why_go_veg/
http://thehumanechoice.com/index.htm
http://www.vegandognutritionassociation.com/vegansfoods.html
