Animal Agriculture Means Animal CrueltyAnimal agriculture involves animal cruelty on a massive scale which I am sure people know. I'm not so sure though that people know the extent of this animal cruelty and how these abused animals are treated: what's involved and how so called welfare laws are broken time and time again.
I have added some information on how animals are raised as food sources, and underneath that I have added another section on the dairy industry. This is important to me because many ethical vegetarians do not realise the animal cruelty involved in this side of animal agriculture - I know that I didn't. In my opinion, the dairy and egg industry is just as bad as the meat industry, if not worse.
Animal Agriculture And Animal CrueltyCattle: Around 300 million beef cattle are slaughtered worldwide each year and are slaughtered at around 12 months old. Calves from the dairy herd are taken from their mothers and fed formula before early weaning at around five/six weeks old. Many of these calves will be sold at market after 10-20 days to specialist calf rearers and beef producers. The most intensive systems involve keeping bull calves indoors or in yards all year round. Bull calves are used as they grow quickly. Increasing numbers are housed in pens on concrete or slats without bedding. Housed animals are confined in high numbers and are fed cereal-based diets – these are often used where a rapid turnover of livestock is required.
A cows natural lifespan is around 20 years old.
Chickens: Over 50 billion chickens are killed worldwide for their flesh and eggs. There are four types of chickens used for the human diet and these are broiler chickens (for their flesh), egg laying chickens, breeders (to breed the broilers and egg layers), and male chicks which are surplus to requirements and are mostly killed at birth. The method of killing is usually by gas or mincing machines. Intensively reared chickens are killed at six weeks old with free range chickens being slaughtered at around eight weeks old. Organic chickens are slaughtered at around twelve weeks of age. A chickens natural lifespan is around 9 years old. Chicken Information Sheet Ducks: Duck farming is similar to chicken farming, with the ducks being slaughtered at around six weeks old. The natural lifespan of a duck is around 15 years. Duck Factory Farming Duck Information Sheet Fish: Fishing means intense pain and stress for millions of fish every year. Fish are treated in ways which would cause an outrage if cute, furry creatures were involved - but fish suffer just as much. The pain begins when the hook pierces the mouth and the fish is reeled in. Many people remove the hook while the fish is still alive. Fishing Information Foie Gras: Foie gras is a food product made of the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened. The fattening method involves forcing a tube down the birds throats and forcing them to eat corn and fat products. This happens four times a day for up to 18 days and causes the animals' livers to swell up to ten times their normal size. The tube that is pushed down their throats can cause serious injuries including rupture of the oesophagus and stomach. Unsurprisingly, the mortality rate of birds on a foie gras farm is up to 20 times greater than that of other poultry farms, where the death rate is also extraordinarily high. Foie Gras Information Pigs: Around 1.3 billion pigs are slaughtered worldwide, with the majority being reared for their flesh and a smaller number for breeding purposes. At least half of these animals are intensively reared in small enclosures. Sow pigs (a female adult pig) are usually confined to gestation crates for the entire 16 week pregnancy period. A gestation crate is so small, that the pig cannot turn around, and so is forced to stand or lay in one position. Shortly before giving birth, a sow is moved to a farrowing crate. Farrowing crates are similar to a gestation crate, but allow a bit more room for the piglets, but still severely restrict the sow's movement. For example, if a piglet bites its mothers teats, the sow cannot move away. It is common practice for piglets to have their teeth cut down without anaesthetic for this reason. Piglets are prematurely weaned after 2-4 weeks, whereas the natural weaning process would take 12-14 weeks. The sow is usually artificially inseminated around a week after the piglets have been weaned. The natural lifespan of a pig is 10-15 years. Pig Information Sheet Sheep: Over 500 million sheep are slaughtered every year for their flesh. Most sheep are farmed outside but intensively reared sheep amount to several million animals. The housing areas for sheep rearing are mainly used for lambing, fattening and milking purposes. Most sheep are slaughtered as lambs (under a year old) but their natural lifespan is around 12 years. Sheep Information Sheet Turkeys: Approximately 40 billion turkeys are killed annually for their flesh. Most turkeys are reared in similar conditions to that of chickens, in broiler sheds. These broiler sheds house around 10,000 turkeys which makes their living area hot, cramped and distressing. Broiler turkeys are usually slaughtered between 12 and 27 weeks, spending the last few weeks of their lives in dim and artificial lighting. Kept in these conditions with barely any room to move, many die from thirst or starvation or are pecked to death by the other birds if too weak to support their own weight. The natural lifespan of a turkey is around 10 years. Turkey Information Sheet The Egg And Dairy Industry
To supply human beings with dairy products such as milk, cream and cheese, involves animal cruelty on a massive scale. Dairy cows are repeatedly artifically inseminated to keep the supply going. They get pregnant, and after giving birth, they lactate for 10 months and are then inseminated again. This cycle continues until they either naturally stop producing milk - around eight or nine years of age - or until they are too ill to be of any use. By the time the dairy cow is just five years old she is worn out by the strain of constant milk and calf production and is slaughtered as she is of no further use to the industry.
Less intensive systems allow the dairy cows to graze on pasture during the spring and summer months and are then housed indoors in cowsheds during the winter. These cows will spend about 7 months a year indoors. The practice of keeping dairy cows indoors for most, if not all of the year is increasing. Cows are usually either kept in sheds with a straw-covered bedding area and an un-bedded concrete floored area or in free stall housing where cows are not constrained and can choose which cubicle to enter. Some cows may be tethered in individual stalls whilst being milked. The dairy cows' calves are taken away from their mothers when they are a day old and are fed milk replacers by humans. The female calves are either slaughtered or kept alive to produce milk and the male calves are kept chained in tiny stalls for three to eighteen weeks to be raised for veal. Calves raised for veal are fed a milk substitute that is designed to make them gain at least 2 pounds per day, and their diet is purposely low in iron so that their flesh stays pale as a result of anemia. An enzyme from their stomachs is used to produce rennet, an ingredient used in many cheeses. In addition to suffering from diarrhea, pneumonia, and lameness, calves raised for veal are terrified and desperate for their mothers. This cycle continues for the duration of the dairy cows life. The cow is denied any chance to nurture its young and form any kind of bond which is what would happen without human interference and what should happen naturally. These dairy cows are no more than milking machines and spend their sad lives standing on concrete floors, or in massive crowded lots where they are forced to live in their own filth. Because of the stress and filthy farming conditions, dairy cows usually contract numerous diseases, become lame or suffer reproductive problems. This usually happens at around four or five years old and they are then sent to the slaughterhouse. A cows natural lifespan is around 20 years old. There is an old saying which says if slaughterhouses were made of glass, nobody would eat meat. Slaughterhouses are the most depressing places and involve extreme animal cruelty. It is easy to find footage of abused animals in the dairy industry on the web. Cattle are stunned first, either by electricity or percussion (captive bolt). They are then killed by having the blood vessels in their neck cut. The animal dies by being bled to death. In percussive stunning a captive bolt pistol is held to the cows head and the bolt penetrates the skull and destroys brain tissue. This should cause an instant loss of consciousness following collapse. If the brain tissue is not destroyed the animal may come around. The use of a captive bolt does not always successfully stun the animal. The most common failure in stunning is due to improper positioning of the bolt, which is a particular problem where cattle are agitated and struggling. Other problems may be due to inadequate maintenance of the pistol. Mis-stunning causes considerable distress and can mean the animal is still conscious during throat cutting. The period of unconsciousness induced by stunning should be longer than the period between stunning and sticking plus the time taken for sticking to induce brain death. Calves are likely to be stunned electrically. Electrical stunning involves passing a large voltage across the animal’s brain. Electric stunning of calves induces a much shorter period of unconsciousness than in other species (around 18 seconds). A number of studies have shown that calves also take longer to lose brain function after throat cutting.Responsiveness can be present in the brains of calves for as long as 104 seconds after neck-sticking. Because of this many calves show clear signs of recovery during bleeding out. The life of an egg laying hen begins in an incubator at a pullet farm. A pullet farm is a poultry operation that produces young female chicks for the egg laying farms. Typically around 50% of new born chicks are males and are considered a by-product of the farming industry as these chicks are not suitable for meat production. These baby male chicks are killed a day or two after hatching and the methods used are by putting them into a mincing machine where they are minced alive, gassing them to death in a gas chamber, suffocation, neck breaking and decapitation.
When the female chicks reach egg laying age at around 18-22 weeks, they are moved to an egg laying farm:
Heating, ventilation, lighting, food and water are all automatically controlled, with the lighting being left on for around 17 hours a day to help increase egg production.
Barn Eggs
You may think that the barn and free range hens havn't got it so bad, and in comparison to the battery hens, they do have it a bit better. However hens would normally live to around 9 years of age but any egg laying hen, free range or otherwise is sent to the slaughterhouse at one year old when their egg laying days are numbered. Actually, in natural surroundings hens can lay eggs for a good few years but due to the stress of their living conditions this doesn't happen. Considering there are over 5 billion egg laying hens at any one time worldwide, that is a lot of hens going to the slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouses are dreadful places. I have not been to any in person but I have seen quite recent undercover footage of what goes on and the animal cruelty that goes on in these places is sickening. This is a sanitized version: Hens are removed from their tiny crates and hung upside down, shackled by their feet to a moving factory line whilst still fully conscious. Their heads and neck are dragged through an electrically charged water bath designed to stun the birds, rendering them unconscious. The moving line then takes the birds to an automatic neck cutter. Birds are then bled before entering a scalding tank to make the plucking easier. Birds often experience pain and struggle while hung in shackles, and they may suffer during the slaughter process. It is essential that a sufficient stunning current is used and that both carotid arteries (the major blood supplies to the brain) are cut to reduce the risk of birds regaining consciousness during bleed-out and subsequently entering the scalding tank whilst still alive. The meat and dairy industry means animal cruelty. Not only that, abused animals are rife in this industry. Even if all the laws were obeyed in these places, it is still cruel to farm these animals for food when we do not need to eat animals. There is recent undercover footage of abattoirs which makes for shocking reading. These animals are no different in mind and thought to the animals you have at home. They all want to live their lives naturally, within family units and we do not need to raise and eat animals to live healthy long lives.
Do your own research into what you are putting inside your bodies when you eat any animal product. Growth hormones, mercury and all manner of poisons are ingested when you eat animals and their by-products. You may not worry about that now but when you are older and your body is riddled with disease, you may wish you had eliminated these items from your diet!
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Many undercover reporters have witnessed terrible things going on inside the animal farming industry, with abused animals being treated as worse than nothing. The perpetrators usually receive a paltry fine which doesn't exactly persuade them to treat their animals with respect does it? Still - animal agriculture is big business so who really cares as long as everyone is making money?
