Animal Cruelty on Farms

People Interact with, see, and even consume farm animals daily across the globe, but has anyone ever thought about the ways they are treated? There are some who believe that the lives farm animals live are good, while there are some who believe they live inhumane existences. I believe that there is a way more humane way to end the lives of these animals. I understand that we need food and the nutrients these animals give us helps us grow, but I don’t want to eat something that has suffered. I also know that Factory Farms have hidden the main things that go on in their farms because they are scared, they will lose their business if people knew the truth. Which in reality they will, because who wants to eat hamburgers, steak, or bacon after watching a horrifying video of an animal being suffocated or being rang by the neck.

Throughout history animals around the US are mistreated everyday in Factory Farms, and we don’t even know about it. Animals are kept in small cages with little space that they can’t even turn around to lay down. These animals spend their whole life without exercise, so all the energy that they have build up goes to producing things for human consumption. Some animals tend to grow faster and larger which causes them to produce more meat or dairy than they normally would. When these animals grow large enough, the ones that are used for food are loaded up into trucks, and will travel thousands of miles in severe weather, and most of the times without food or water the whole way to the slaughterhouse, because the farmers believe it is too much of a hassle to supply the animals with food or water before they die. Those who survive the terrible journey will end up having their throats slit while there are in scalding hot water, or while their skin is being skinned. These things are only a short list of things that people do in order to receive their paycheck or to get food. More examples of what can happen to these animals is go through practices such as they can have their testicles, tails, horns, breaks, or toes removed without anesthesia (Farmed Animals). They can be confined into spaces so small to where they can’t move their wings, or even lay down comfortably. Hens can be starved in order to artificially restart their egg laying cycles (Farmed Animals). Male chicks are ground up alive, and piglets are killed by slamming their heads on the ground ( Farmed Animal).Calves can be taken away from their mothers just seconds right after birth causing distress for both. Due to these several reasons of practices that the factory farms put these animals through have made certain companies send out investigators to discover more information about the slaughterhouses, and the farms where the animals are held before they get on the truck. What they found out when they arrived was way worse than they had ever imagined. They saw newly born chickens being thrown into a bag only to be killed by suffocation a few minutes later, they even cows in tiny place with no room to move their tails.

If more people knew about these conditions would they buy a different type of food, such as organic? Over 94% of people answered this question by saying that they would stop eating the meat, but that if they continued to eat it that these animals should be able to live longer, happier, and be killed in a more inhumane way. The pictures and videos that have shown up on our social media is real. They were filmed and taken by people who want to show people around the world what it is really like on these farms, and slaughterhouses. They don’t want to hurt people feelings, or scare them but to inform them about what is going on with today in factory farms and slaughter houses. There are even lots of foundations out there that you can donate to or read information about to help you become more aware with what is going on and how you can help. One of many foundations is The Mercy for Animals Foundation is to help these animals, they exist to end the greatest causes of suffering on this planet. They are dedicated to destroying this cruel food system and replacing it with one that is not just kind to animals but essential for the future of our planet, and all who share it. They have built cases to try to stop what happens, and since the beginning of 2002 they have become very successful, so successful that Kraft Foods announced a new policy requiring all dairy suppliers to stop the cruel practice of tail docking cattle. As of today more farms have started being more inhumane to the animals by letting them have open space, and being able to be with there babies, and even though there is still many factory farms and slaughterhouses that abuse these animals the Mercy for Animal Foundation plans to stop it all.

Raising animals for food has become a cruel and a wrongful event. Animals are put on certain diets where they don’t get all the nutrients they need to survive. They are put on drugs that cause chronic pain, and crippling. Cows are one of the most commonly killed for food. Dairy cows, for example, must deal with being pregnant for their whole life, so they will always be able to produce milk. For the whole entire time they can produce milk they are chained up in a small little area. Once they are empty, they will be sent to the slaughterhouse to be killed for hamburgers. Veal Calves unfortunately have the worst fate of them all. They have to stand in a 22” by 54” crate which is their permanent home. The purpose of the crate is to stop the calve from moving, so that way its muscles are tender. Factor Farms likes this because the more tender the muscles, the more gourmet the veal is. The Veal Calves are fed milk substances that do not contain iron or other essential vitamins. After fourteen weeks of being born they are sent to the slaughterhouse. Horses are the common ones that people would never think about being killed for food. In most states it is illegal to kill a horse, but states like Illinois and Texas it is not illegal. Here horses are kept in extreme conditions, they are sent to slaughterhouses in a trailer that should only carry four, but the squeeze more.

The horse meat is used for human food, dog food, and is used to make glue. Many of the people that live where that is legal believe it is wrong, and don’t want to take any part in it. As of today, eighteen million pigs being raised for pork. The mother cows live a life like dairy cows. They have to go through constant pregnancies reaching to about eight to ten births in their lifetime. They are forced to live their life in crates the same size as them nothing bigger with no bedding just a cold dirty concrete floor. The piglets which are the baby pigs live in the crates for no longer than 2 weeks then are moved into the feeder pen. Fifteen percent of the piglets die off due to poor living conditions. The ones that survive are sent to be castrated, and have their tails cut off, teeth ground, and ears notched, which is all done without pain medicine used. The baby pigs live in stalls that have manure pits underneath them. This means they are basically living in their own feces for the time they are there.

They live up to when they reach market weight, which is two hundred and fifty pound and then are shipped to slaughterhouses. Another common animal to be killed for food and products is chickens. Chickens are raised for eggs are kept in wired cages measuring forty centimeters be forty-five centimeters. The cages they stay in are not just for holding one chicken, but up to six chickens. The lack of space prevents the chickens from doing anything at such as moving, stretching out their wings. Since the conditions they live in is terrible, one out of five chickens die, and the other hens are killed a little after two years. Broiler chickens live in the dark sheds that are extremely small and is piled full of chickens to where most of them die because of suffocation. These living conditions also can cause the chickens to have hysteria which causes the suffocation or stampede. The pressure that the stress can have on the chickens can turn them into cannibalism. These chickens are forced to live this life for a few years before being sent to the slaughterhouses.

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