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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still portrayed in children’s books, have been replaced by windowless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 legal protection from horrific abuses that would
be illegal if they were inflicted on dogs or cats: neglect, mutilations,
genetic manipulation, and drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling,
transport through all weather extremes, and inhumane slaughter. Yet farmed
animals are no less interesting, 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, often
unable to turn around. They are deprived of exercise so that all their
bodies’ energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk for human
consumption. They are fed drugs to fatten them faster and are genetically
altered to grow faster or to produce much more milk or eggs than they
would naturally.
Because crowding creates a prime atmosphere for 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 eat them,
creating serious human health hazards. Both the World Health Organization
and the American Medical Association have supported ending the use of
antibiotics.(1,2) Although McDonald’s has announced that it will
phase out growth-promoting antibiotics, the fast-food chain is not likely
to decrease overall antibiotic use.(3) The industry simply cannot raise
the billions of animals per year that it does in such gruesome conditions
without the drugs that allow their bodies to survive conditions that would
otherwise kill them.
Chickens
 Chickens
are inquisitive animals, and when 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 a full life that
includes dust-bathing, making nests, and roosting in trees. On the factory
farm, however, chickens are denied these activities.
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 and excrement. Farmers induce greater egg production
through “forced molting”: Chickens are denied food and light
for days, which leads to feather and weight loss.(4) To prevent stress-induced
behaviors caused by overcrowding, such as pecking their cagemates to death,
hens are kept in semi-darkness, and the ends of their beaks are cut off
with hot blades (without pain relief). The wire mesh of the cages rubs
their feathers off, chafes their skin, and cripples their feet. 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’re slaughtered.(5,6) More than 100 million “spent”
hens die in slaughterhouses every year.(7) Ninety-eight percent of the
egg industry’s hens are in cages on factory farms.(8)
Nearly 9 billion “broiler” chickens are raised in sheds each
year.(9) 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
6 weeks to “grow out” a chick to “processing”
weight), which causes extremely painful joint and bone conditions.(10)
Undercover investigations into the “broiler” chicken industry
have repeatedly revealed birds who were suffering 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
snapped into metal shackles, their throats are slit open, and they are
immersed in scalding hot water for feather removal. They are often conscious
through the entire process.
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Cattle
 Cows
who are left 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, and play games.(11) But the cows raised for the meat and
dairy industries are far removed from sun-drenched 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.(12) They are
castrated, their horns are ripped out of their heads, and they have third-degree
burns inflicted on them (branding), all without any pain relief. During
transportation, cattle are crowded into metal trucks where they suffer
from trampling, temperature extremes, and lack of food, water, and veterinary
care. At the slaughterhouse, cattle may be hoisted upside down by their
hind legs and dismembered while fully 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,” says one worker.(13)
Calves raised for veal are the male offspring of dairy cows. They’re
taken from their mothers within a few days of birth and chained in stalls
only 2 feet wide and 6 feet long with slatted floors.(14) Since their
mothers’ milk is used for human consumption, the calves are fed
a milk substitute designed to help them gain at least 2 pounds a day.(15)
The diet is purposely low in iron so that the calves become anemic and
their flesh stays pale and tender.(16)
Pigs
 With
corporate hog factories replacing traditional hog farms, pigs raised for
food are being treated more as inanimate tools of production than as living,
feeling animals.
Approximately 100 million pigs are raised and slaughtered in the U.S.
every year. As babies, they are subjected to painful mutilations without
anesthesia or pain relievers. Their tails are cut off to minimize tail
biting, an aberrant behavior that occurs when these highly-intelligent
animals are kept in deprived factory farm environments. In addition, notches
are taken out of the piglets' ears for identification.
By two to three weeks of age, 15% of the piglets will have died. Those
who survive are taken away from their mothers and crowded into pens with
metal bars and concrete floors. A headline from National Hog Farmer magazine
advises, "Crowding Pigs Pays...", and this is exemplified by
the intense overcrowding in every stage of hog confinement systems. Pigs
will live this way, packed into giant, warehouse-like sheds, until they
reach a slaughter weight of 250 pounds at 6 months old.
The air in hog factories is laden with dust, dander, and noxious gases,
which are produced as the animals' urine and feces builds up inside the
sheds. Studies of workers in swine confinement buildings have found sixty
percent to have breathing problems, despite their spending only a few
hours a day inside confinement buildings. For pigs, who spend their entire
lives in factory farm confinement, respiratory disease is rampant.
Modern hog factories are fertile breeding grounds for a wide variety
of diseases. A pork industry report explains:
Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, or PRRS, was first reported
in U.S. herds in 1987. It is now estimated to be in as many as 60 percent
of U.S. herds...Swine arthritis has increased in economic importance with
confinement rearing, partly because of damage related to flooring conditions
and partly because of faster growth rates and lack of exercise...The incidence
of salmonellosis has continued to increase. It is estimated that one-third
to half of farms have some level of salmonellosis...Epidemic transmissible
gastroenteritis, or TGE, is a dreaded disease because it's hard to keep
out of herds, there's no effective treatment and it carries a devastating
mortality rate in baby pigs. Nearly all pigs less than 10 days old die
if infected...Forty to 70 percent of U.S. pigs show evidence of infection
with bratislava (a type of Leptospirosis)...Tests indicate 80 percent
to 85 percent of sows in major swine producing areas have been exposed
to parvovirus.
Modern breeding sows are treated like piglet-making machines. Living
a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth, each sow has more than 20
piglets per year. After being impregnated, the sows are confined in gestation
crates — small metal pens just two feet wide that prevent sows from
turning around or even lying down comfortably. At the end of their four-month
pregnancies, they are transferred to similarly cramped farrowing crates
to give birth. With barely enough room to stand up and lie down and no
straw or other type of bedding to speak of, many suffer from sores on
their shoulders and knees. When asked about this, one pork industry representative
wrote, "...straw is very expensive and there certainly would not
be a supply of straw in the country to supply all the farrowing pens in
the U.S."
Numerous research studies conducted over the last 25 years have pointed
to physical and psychological maladies experienced by sows in confinement.
The unnatural flooring and lack of exercise causes obesity and crippling
leg disorders, while the deprived environment produces neurotic coping
behaviors such as repetitive bar biting and sham chewing (chewing nothing).
After the sows give birth and nurse their young for two to three weeks,
the piglets are taken away to be fattened, and the sows are re-impregnated.
An article in Successful Farming explains, "Any sow that is not gestating,
lactating or within seven days post weaning is non-active," and hog
factories strive to keep their sows '100 % active' in order to maximize
profits. When the sow is no longer deemed a productive breeder, she is
sent to slaughter.
In addition to overcrowded housing, sows and pigs are also endure extreme
crowding in transportation, resulting in rampant suffering and deaths.
As one hog industry expert writes:
Death losses during transport are too high — amounting to more
than $8 million per year. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to
figure out why we load as many hogs on a truck as we do. It's cheaper.
So it becomes a moral issue. Is it right to overload a truck and save
$.25 per head in the process, while the overcrowding contributes to the
deaths of 80,000 hogs each year?
Prior to being hung upside down by their back legs and bled to death
at the slaughterhouse, pigs are supposed to be 'stunned' and rendered
unconscious, in accordance with the federal Humane Slaughter Act. However,
stunning at slaughterhouses is terribly imprecise, and often conscious
animals are hung upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse
worker tries to 'stick' them in the neck with a knife. If the worker is
unsuccessful, the pig will be carried to the next station on the slaughterhouse
assembly line — the scalding tank — where he/she will be boiled,
alive and fully conscious.
Dairy Cows
 Traditional
small dairies, located primarily in the Northeast and Midwest, are going
out of business. They are being replaced by intensive 'dry lot' dairies,
which are typically located in the Southwest U.S.
Regardless of where they live, however, all dairy cows must give birth
in order to begin producing milk. Today, dairy cows are forced to have
a calf every year. Like human beings, cows have a nine-month gestation
period, and so giving birth every twelve months is physically demanding.
The cows are also artificially re-impregnated while they are still lactating
from their previous birthing, so their bodies are still producing milk
during seven months of their nine-month pregnancy.
With genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it is
common for modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day —
ten times more than they would produce naturally. As a result, the cows'
bodies are under constant stress, and they are at risk for numerous health
problems.
Approximately half of the country's dairy cows suffer from mastitis,
a bacterial infection of their udders. This is such a common and costly
ailment that a dairy industry group, the National Mastitis Council, was
formed specifically to combat the disease. Other diseases, such as Bovine
Leukemia Virus, Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus, and Johne's disease (whose
human counterpart is Crohn's disease) are also rampant on modern dairies,
but they commonly go unnoticed because they are either difficult to detect
or have a long incubation period.
A cow eating a normal grass diet could not produce milk at the abnormal
levels expected on modern dairies, and so today's dairy cows must be given
high energy feeds. The unnaturally rich diet causes metabolic disorders
including ketosis, which can be fatal, and laminitis, which causes lameness.
Another dairy industry disease caused by intensive milk production is
"Milk Fever." This ailment is caused by calcium deficiency,
and it occurs when milk secretion depletes calcium faster than it can
be replenished in the blood.
In a healthy environment, cows would live in excess of twenty-five years,
but on modern dairies, they are slaughtered and made into ground beef
after just three or four years. The abuse wreaked upon the bodies of dairy
cows is so intense that the dairy industry also is a huge source of "downed
animals" — animals who are so sick or injured that they are
unable to walk even stand. Investigators have documented downed animals
routinely being beaten, dragged, or pushed with bulldozers in attempts
to move them to slaughter.
Although the dairy industry is familiar with the cows' health problems
and suffering associated with intensive milk production, it continues
to subject cows to even worse abuses in the name of increased profit.
Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), a synthetic hormone, is now being injected
into cows to get them to produce even more milk. Besides adversely affecting
the cows' health, BGH also increases birth defects in their calves.
Calves born to dairy cows are separated from their mothers immediately
after birth. The half that are born female are raised to replace older
dairy cows in the milking herd. The other half of the calves are male,
and because they will never produce milk, they are raised and slaughtered
for meat. Most are killed for beef, but about one million are used for
veal.
The veal industry was created as a by-product of the dairy industry to
take advantage of an abundant supply of unwanted male calves. Veal calves
commonly live for eighteen to twenty weeks in wooden crates that are so
small that they cannot turn around, stretch their legs, or even lie down
comfortably. The calves are fed a liquid milk substitute, deficient in
iron and fiber, which is designed to make the animals anemic, resulting
in the light-colored flesh that is prized as veal. In addition to this
high-priced veal, some calves are killed at just a few days old to be
sold as low-grade 'bob' veal for products like frozen TV dinners.
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Eggs
 There
are approximately 300 million egg laying hens in the U.S. confined in
battery cages — small wire cages stacked in tiers and lined up in
rows inside huge warehouses. In accordance with the USDA's recommendation
to give each hen four inches of 'feeder space,' hens are commonly packed
four to a cage measuring just 16 inches wide. In this tiny space, the
birds cannot stretch their wings or legs, and they cannot fulfill normal
behavioral patterns or social needs. Constantly rubbing against the wire
cages, they suffer from severe feather loss, and their bodies are covered
with bruises and abrasions.
In order to reduce injuries resulting from excessive pecking —
an aberrant behavior that occurs when the confined hens are bored and
frustrated — practically all laying hens have part of their beaks
cut off. Debeaking is a painful procedure that involves cutting through
bone, cartilage, and soft tissue.
Laying more than 250 eggs per year each, laying hens' bodies are severely
taxed. They suffer from "fatty liver syndrome" when their liver
cells, which work overtime to produce the fat and protein for egg yolks,
accumulate extra fat. They also suffer from what the industry calls 'cage
layer fatigue,' and many become 'egg bound' and die when their bodies
are too weak to pass another egg.
Osteoporosis is another common ailment afflicting egg laying hens, whose
bodies lose more calcium to form egg shells than they can assimilate from
their diets. One industry journal, Feedstuffs, explains, "...the
laying hen at peak eggshell cannot absorb enough calcium from her diet..."
while another (Lancaster Farming) states, "... a hen will use a quantity
of calcium for yearly egg production that is greater than her entire skeleton
by 30-fold or more." Inadequate calcium contributes to broken bones,
paralysis, and death.
After one year in egg production, the birds are classified as 'spent
hens' and are sent off to slaughter. Their brittle, calcium-depleted bones
often shatter during handling or at the slaughterhouse. They usually end
up in soups, pot pies, or similar low-grade chicken meat products in which
their bodies can be shredded to hide the bruises from consumers.
With a growing supply of broiler chickens keeping slaughterhouses busy,
egg producers have had to find new ways to dispose of spent hens. One
entrepreneur has developed the 'Jet-Pro' system to turn spent hens into
animal feed. As described in Feedstuffs, "Company trucks would enter
layer operations, pick up the birds, and grind them up, on site, in a
portable grinder... it (the ground up hens) would go to Jet-Pro's new
extruder-texturizer, the 'Pellet Pro.'"
In one notorious case of extraordinary cruelty at Ward Egg Ranch in February
2003 in San Diego County, California, more than 15,000 spent laying hens
were tossed alive into a wood-chipping machine to dispose of them. Despite
tremendous outcry from a horrified public, the district attorney declined
to prosecute the owners of the egg farm, calling the use of a wood-chipper
to kill hens a "common industry practice."
In some cases, especially if the cost of replacement hens is high, laying
hens may be 'force molted' to extend their laying capacity. This process
involves starving the hens for up to 18 days, keeping them in the dark,
and denying them water to shock their bodies into another egg-laying cycle.
Commonly, between 5 and 10% of birds die during the molt, and those who
live may lose more than 25% of their body weight.
For every egg-laying hen confined in a battery cage, there is a male
chick who was killed at the hatchery. Because egg-laying chicken breeds
have been genetically selected exclusively for maximum egg production,
they don't grow fast or large enough to be raised profitably for meat.
Therefore, male chicks of egg-laying breeds are of no economic value,
and they are literally discarded on the day they hatch — usually
by the cheapest, most convenient means available. Thrown into trash cans
by the thousands, male chicks suffocate or are crushed under the weight
of others.
Another common method of disposing of unwanted male chicks is grinding
them up alive. This can result in unspeakable horrors, as described by
one research scientist who observed that "even after twenty seconds,
there were only partly damaged animals with whole skulls". In other
words, fully conscious chicks were partially ground up and left to slowly
and agonizingly die. Eyewitness accounts at commercial hatcheries indicate
similar horrors of chicks being slowly dismembered by machinery blades
en route to trash bins or manure spreaders.
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Fish
For millennia, fish have been taken from the world's oceans, lakes, and
rivers and killed by humans for food. In recent decades, consumer demand
for seafood has increased in the U.S., while new technologies have improved
our ability to find and catch fish. Over the latter half of the 20th century,
wild catches have increased by approximately 500% to nearly 100 million
tons per year.
As a result, wild fish populations have been decimated. In addition to
fish who are caught by factory trawling vessels, other — economically
useless — sea life are caught and killed in the nets. Called 'by-catch,'
these animals — including non-target fish, sea turtles, sea lions,
and even dolphins — are thrown back into the water dead or dying.
The U.S. government estimates more than 100, 000 marine mammals are killed
every year by the U.S. commercial fishing industry, and worldwide, it
is thought that approximately one third of wild-caught fish are considered
'by-catch.'
One agribusiness publication, Feedstuffs, states that
Under current management strategies of commercial harvests in open-access
fisheries, such as oceans or Great Lakes commercial fisheries, increased
production is possible only in the shortest runs. Every new seafood
fad leads to the decimation of another species of fish... Any major
increase in seafood consumption can be sustained only if the seafood
is grown on farms or in other managed environments.
In a subsequent Feedstuffs article, agribusiness profiteers appeared undaunted
by the tragic loss of sea life and proclaim that the situation "may
offer opportunities for aquaculturalists to profitably produce farm-raised
fish."
The quantity of farm-raised fish has doubled over the past decade and
is "one of the fastest growing food producing sectors," according
to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Today,
approximately one in five fish consumed worldwide is raised in captivity.
The life of a farm-raised fish begins in temperature-controlled hatching
tanks. From here, small fish (called "fry") are transferred
to rearing areas where they grow to maturity. The fish may be raised in
highly- controlled tanks or raceways (rectangular concrete enclosures
up to 20 acres in size) constructed inland, or they may be raised in artificial
enclosures in coastal estuaries. Fish crowded into small areas are susceptible
to disease and suffocation, as exemplified by an article from the Cornell
Countryman, which states, "...growing 2,500 pounds of fish in 2,500
gallons of water doesn't give the fish much room to breathe..."
Raising fish in crowded, excrement-laden water necessitates the broad
use of agrichemicals. An FDA Veterinarian article explains that fish farmers
"use chemicals as disinfectants and to kill bacteria; herbicides
to prevent the overgrowth of vegetation in ponds; vaccines to fight certain
diseases; and drugs - usually combined in the feed - to treat diseases
and parasites."
In addition, the fish industry insists that "access to spawning
and production hormones is one of the 'essential and critical' needs of
the U.S. aquaculture industry," as described in Food Chemical News.
When aquaculture operates in coastal estuaries, the chemicals and waste
products it generates pollute and destroy vast expanses of valuable and
increasingly rare estuaries every year.
When they reach market weight, aquaculture fish are loaded into oxygenated
tanker trucks bound for the kill plant. Needless to say, this is a very
stressful process. Feedstuffs comments, "Conventional pond harvest
methods, such as pond draw-down or seining (the use of nets), often severely
stress or damage fish."
Upon arriving at the processing plant, the tanker trucks pour their cargo
— water and fish — into large, metal, mesh cages. As the water
pours through, fish who have survived the ordeal of "harvest"
and transportation die of suffocation.
The ability of fish to feel pain and distress is given so little consideration
that in some restaurants, fish are actually eaten alive — eviscerated,
filleted, and delivered to the serving table. The eyes are covered so
that the fishes will not see and react to diners reaching for parts of
their bodies.
One article, written by Hodding Carter IV, describes eating a live fish
in gruesome detail: "We each reached in with our chopsticks. The
fish buckled... Now, as it slowly died, would it feel each piece of its
body lifted away and hungrily masticated?"
Environmental and Health Concerns
Factory farms are harmful to the environment as well: Factory farms produce
billions of pounds of manure a day, which ends up in lakes, rivers, and
drinking water. A Missouri hog farm paid a $1 million fine for illegally
dumping waste, causing the contamination of a nearby river and the deaths
of more than 50,000 fish.(26)
Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., 80 percent is used to raise
animals for food and to grow the grain to feed them—that’s
almost half the total land mass of the lower 48 states.(27) Chickens,
pigs, cattle, and other animals raised for food are the primary consumers
of half the water in the U.S.(28)
An estimated one out of every four cattle who enters a slaughterhouse
may have E. coli.(29) A Consumer Reports study of nearly 500 supermarket
chickens found campylobacter in 42 percent and salmonella in 12 percent,
with up to 90 percent of the bacteria resistant to antibiotics.(30) Eggs
pose a salmonella threat to one out of every 50 people each year.(31)
In total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that
there are 76 million instances of foodborne illness each year, and more
than 5,000 deaths.(32)
Food-processing firms depend on a ready supply of willing labor, no less
today than when Upton Sinclair shocked the nation with The Jungle. Despite
increased automation, meat, poultry, and fish processing remain labor-intensive.
Today's major food- processing companies still draw their workers from
among minorities, new immigrants, refugees, and women.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA),
meat-, poultry-, and fish-processing jobs are among the most hazardous
in America. A principal cause of excessive injury is the speed of the
disassembly line along which carcasses are processed. Workers make thousands
of repetitive motions each day, leading to cumulative trauma disorders,
the most common being carpal tunnel syndrome.
As people across the country agonize over rising health care costs and
the transfer of health care from the private to the public sector, injury
rates in meat, poultry, and seafood processing place an added burden upon
host communities.
Food processing workers rarely earn a "living wage" - one sufficient
for workers to reproduce their households. The income needs for labor-force
reproduction approximate federally established poverty levels, the income
necessary to feed, clothe, and shelter a family of four. Gross annual
incomes from meatpacking jobs usually fall a few thousand dollars above
or below these levels; income in poultry processing is less, while in
fish processing earnings can fall to half of established poverty levels.
These income estimates all assume workers will enjoy full employment,
but seasonal slowdowns in demand, occasional plant closings, and occupational
injuries reduce time on the job and hence reduce annual earnings.
Plant foods improve human health, while animal 'foods' degrade it. The
most comprehensive study to date regarding the relationship between diet
and human health found that the consumption of animal-derived ‘food’
products was linked with "diseases of affluence" such as heart
disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, and cancer. T. Colin Campbell's landmark
research in The China Project found a pure vegetarian (i.e. vegan) diet
to be healthiest. Dr. Campbell estimates that "80 to 90% of all cancers,
cardiovascular diseases, and other degenerative illness can be prevented,
at least until very old age - simply by adopting a plant-based diet."
The meat, poultry, dairy and egg industries employ technological short
cuts— as drugs, hormones, and other chemicals — to maximize
production. Under these conditions, virulent pathogens that are resistant
to antibiotics are emerging. These new ‘supergerms,’ whose
evolution is traceable directly to the overuse of antibiotics in factory
farming, have the potential to cause yet unknown human suffering and deaths.
Peculiar new diseases have been amplified by aberrant agribusiness practices.
For example, "Mad Cow Disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy
or BSE), a fatal dementia affecting cattle, spread throughout Britain
when dead cows were fed to living cows. When people ate cows with "Mad
Cow Disease," they got Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a fatal dementia
that afflicts humans.
Another farm animal disease beginning to jeopardize human health is avian
influenza. In Hong Kong, where scores of people have died from the so-called
"bird- flu," over one million chickens have been destroyed in
the panic to stop the spread of the disease.
Millions of Americans are infected, and thousands die every year from
contaminated animal ‘food’ products. Despite repeated warnings
from consumer advocates, the USDA's meat inspection system remains grossly
inadequate, and consumers are now being told to "expect" animal
products to be tainted.
Meanwhile, the agribusiness industry, rather than advising consumers
to curtail their intake of animal products, has devised extreme measures
(overcooking, antibiotics, etc.) to help consumers circumvent the hazards
of animal products and maintain their gross over-consumption of meat and
dairy.
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Laws and Lifestyles
One way to stop the abuses of factory farming is to support legislation
that abolishes battery cages, veal crates, and intensive-confinement systems.
Florida voters have banned the use of the tiny gestation crates used on
hog farms.(33) The United Kingdom prohibits the use of gestation crates
and veal crates.(34,35) The European Union is phasing out the use of battery
cages as of 2012.(36)
The best way to save animals from the misery of factory farming is to
stop buying and eating meat, milk, and eggs. Vegetarianism and veganism
mean eating for life: yours and animals’. Call 1-888-VEG-FOOD or
visit GoVeg.com
for a free vegetarian starter kit.
Resources
1)Marc Kaufman, “WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal
Growth,” The Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2003.
2)“Groups Applaud AMA Action on Antibiotics in Agriculture, Antibiotic
Resistance,” U.S. Newswire, 20 Jun. 2001.
3)“McDonald’s Calls for Phase-Out of Growth Promoting Antibiotics
in Meat Supply, Establishes Global Policy on Antibiotic Use,” McDonald’s
Corporate news release, 19 Jun. 2003.
4)Joy A. Mench and Paul B. Siegel, “Poultry,” South Dakota
State University, College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, 11 Jul.
2001.
5)Molly Snyder Edler, “Chicken Love Leads to Book Deal,” OnMilwaukee.com,
26 Sep. 2002.
6)Ryan A. Meunier et al., “Commercial Egg Production and Processing,”
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Purdue University, 4 Apr. 2003.
7)Barbara Olejnik, “Dwindling Spent Hen Disposal Outlets Causes
Concern,” Poultry Times, 15 Sep. 2003.
8)Mench and Siegel.
9)Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, “Chicken Meat, Slaughtered/Prod
Animals (1,000),” FAOSTAT Database, 2002.
10)Cindy Skrzycki, “Old Rules on Poultry Categories May Fly the
Coup,” The Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2003.
11)Rosamund Young, The Secret Life of Cows, United Kingdom: Farming Books
and Video, 2003.
12)Elizabeth Weise, “Consumers May Have a Beef With Cattle Feed,”
USA Today, 10 Jun. 2003.
13)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.
14)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):
1697-1703.
15)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.
16)“Top New York Restaurants Stop Serving White Veal,” Reuters,
6 Jul. 2000.
17)“New Slant on Chump Chops,” Cambridge Daily News, 29 Mar.
2002.
18)Marc Kaufman, “In Pig Farming, Growing Concern; Raising Sows
in Crates Is Questioned,” The Washington Post, 18 Jun. 2001.
19)Kaufman.
20)William G. Luce et al., “Managing the Sow and Litter,”
Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Mar. 1995.
21)Luce et al.
22)Joe Vansickle, “Quality Assurance Program Launched,” National
Hog Farmer, 15 Feb. 2002.
23)Warrick.
24)Warrick.
25)Marc Kaufman, “Ex-Pig Farm Manager Charged With Cruelty,”
The Washington Post, 9 Sep. 2001.
26)“Cargill Fined $1 Million for Dumping Hog Waste in River,”
Press, 20 Feb. 2002.
27)Marlow Vesterby and Kenneth S. Krupa, “Major Uses of Land in
the United States, 1997,” Statistical Bulletin No. 973, U.S. Department
of Agriculture, 1997.
28)Bill McKibben, “Taking the Pulse of the Planet,” Audubon,
Nov. 1999, p. 104.
29)Philip Brasher, “Summer’s Here—Along With Threat
of E. Coli,” Press, 3 Jul. 2000.
30)“Food Safety. Tests. Of Birds and Bacteria,” Consumer Reports,
Jan. 2003.
Source: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), FactoryFarming.com
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