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Negative effects of factory farming
Case study about animals being mistreated as a result of factory farming
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Every year, the U.S raises 100 million pigs for food each year. 8.5 Billion chickens are killed every year, and 300 million are kept in cages for egg production. Many factory-farmed animals have been genetically mutated to produce higher quality goods such as beef and eggs. Antibiotics used on the animals keep them alive in what should be deathly conditions- also causing antibiotic-resistant bacteria which is harmful to humans. Chickens' beaks are removed so that companies can fit 5-8 into a 14 inch square cage. 1/5 of Chickens will die before being slaughtered because of stress or disease. At a typical slaughterhouse, 250 cows are killed every hour. Adult, female pigs spend 2 - 3 weeks nursing their young as
Over 98% of all animals raised for food in the United States comes from factory farms which use inhumane methods to ensure a steady food production. Animals raised in
Chickens are one of the top most tortured animals in factory farms. Farmers get the most money for chickens that are heavier and have enlarged thighs and breasts. Like most factory farmed animals, broiler chickens are raised in overcrowded cages their entire life, and become very aggressive. Because of this aggressiveness the employees of the farms cut of their beaks and toes without any type of painkiller or an anesthetic just to keep them from fighting. After being “debeaked” some chickens are then not able to eat and starve. Layer chickens lay 90-95% of the eggs sold in the U.S. (2013b) The torture starts the day they are born. Chicks are placed on a belt, where an employee than picks up each chick to see if it is a male or female. Newborn male chicks are thrown into trash bags, ground up alive, crushed, and killed many other inhumane ways.
Chickens have to endure suffering that no living thing should have to go through. The egg laying chickens have to be forced into tiny cages without enough room to stretch their wings. Up to 8 hens are crammed in to a cage that is the size of a folded newspaper, about 11"-14". Stress from the confinement leads to severe feather loss so the chicken will be almost completely bald in the cold cages. When the chickens are of egg-laying age, there beaks are cut off without any pain killers to ease the pain, they do this so the chickens don’t break their own eggs and eat them because the chickens are hungry.
There lies a problem in all this, and it may not be quite as obvious as we think. Which is the true problem? The generalization of all farmers in Alberta? The biased TV documentary broadcasted across the province? The actual housing of the laying chickens? Could it be the animal activists creating unneeded uncertainty in the industry? Or maybe the jeopardizing of all egg producers in Alberta. Each pose a valid problem related to the main issue, and it's safe to say that all these problems are all included in the main problem. So what is the main problem one might ask? The problem has narrowed down to the general public being unhappy about how today's modern consumption eggs are produced. Is there really one solution that can fix this problem, as well as the problems within? It's hard to keep everyone happy but there are solutions.
Experimenting on animals sounds cruel and it is, but the threat of disease out ways the cruelty that is inflicted on the animals. In part, humans are to blame for this situation. In Sabin’s article Animal Research Saves Human Lives she says, “Advanced sanitation was responsible in part for the dramatic rise in number
Factory farming has changed drastically over past 6 decades. We often believe that our food comes from a peaceful, happy farm, but in reality farm animals are put through misery on a daily basis. Regardless of whether it is an independent farm or contracted farm, livestock is mistreated and then harvested for meat or dairy production. The way production animals are treated on factory farms should change for the safety of the animals and the people who consume them.
As the years pass by, research is continually uncovering new methods to improve efficiency of domestic breeding programs for commercially farmed animals. Within every one of these methods there are advantages, disadvantages, limitations and ethical issues which must be investigated and addressed. Still, with the use of these realised technologies, there have been significant advances already, that indicate a more genetically focused, and technology based farming life for future years. Procedures including Embryo Transfer (ET) and Artificial Insemination (AI) are already being employed, with widespread use on commercial cattle properties. While at the same time, technologies such as Cloning, and Genetic Engineering although seemingly already developed to some degree, are just the tip of the iceburg as researchers strive to create a genetically perfect, nation wide, breeding program for cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and poultry.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a book that displays what can occur in a society that is ruled by an oppressive government. By using farm animals, George Orwell shows how an oppressive government can prove to be disastrous and also confining. While the book was originally regarded as a book that parallels the effects of communism, in more recent times the book has also shown to parallel the happenings occurring in what is known as the Arab Spring. Currently, countries involved in the Arab Spring has begun to revolt and rebel against their governments that oppress them in hopes of gaining freedom and equality among the people. These countries include Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. It is in these countries where the people have grown overly frustrated and angry at their governments that treat them unfairly. While some have become successful in overthrowing their government, there are still those that are struggling. However, Tunisia is not one of the struggling countries but in fact is one that was successful in its revolution. It is in the country of Tunisia were many similarities in its revolution are seen in George Orwell’s book. This paper will attempt to illustrate the equivalences between the events that occurred in Animal Farm but also in the Tunisian revolution.
Others will point out that the conditions the livestock placed in are in-human as some would describe it as the livestock stood in their own fecal matter. Which leads to a bigger problem for some scientist and doctors. The livestock are often in conditions that are unfavorable, such as cramped areas or even standing in their own feces. This type of environment is a breeding ground for various virus and bacteria so they require lots of antibiotics. But this leads into a much bigger issue, because they are pumped with antibiotics, scientist and doctors worry that it could lead to an antibiotic resistance strain of bacteria or viruses. This super virus/ bacteria could become a much larger problem. If bacteria and viruses become resistant to our antibiotics then it could lead to a much bigger problem. Other environmental impacts of the industry would be the waste created by the animals, in one case the waste storage failed leading to a runoff that made it into a nearby river that damaged the entire ecosystem of the river. With that said we need to become aware of the conditions that we placed the livestock in, as it could become a much bigger problem that we will have to
When chickens get a taste of blood they won’t stop pecking until the other is dead, so when they are kept in such close confinements, they kill each other. About 238 million turkeys are raised in the U.S. for meat annually, most of these being raised on a factory farm. On factory farms turkeys are housed in groups on the floor of a long shed where there is no fresh air, sunlight, or pasture. This causes them to breathe in dangerously high amounts of ammonia caused by their own
However, health concerned organizations want to ban the use of these products due to the increasing fears that they can cause harm to the consumers. For over 50 years, antibiotics have been added to the food of animals such as poultry, cattle and pigs. The main purpose for doing so is to lower the risk of disease in animals. Farm animals are housed together in overcrowded areas, which are very dirty. The hygiene level can get to such a poor state that they are often in contact with their own excreta as well as excreta of the other animals they are housed with and because of tight single air space they share, the likelihood of catching diseases from one another is further increased and very often a whole heard can be infected at one time.
How would you feel being raised for slaughter? Not being able to move because of a large crowd in such a confined space? How would you feel being encircled by disease, illness and constant abuse? To animals, this is known as a factory farm.
Poultry is by far the number one meat consumed in America; it is versatile, relatively inexpensive compared to other meats, and most importantly it can be found in every grocery store through out the United States. All of those factors are made possible because of factory farming. Factory farming is the reason why consumers are able to purchase low-priced poultry in their local supermarket and also the reason why chickens and other animals are being seen as profit rather than living, breathing beings. So what is exactly is factory farming? According to Ben Macintyre, a writer and columnist of The Times, a British newspaper and a former chicken farm worker, he summed up the goal of any factory farm “... to produce the maximum quantity of edible meat, as fast and as cheaply as possible, regardless of quality, cruelty or hygiene” ( Macintyre, 2009). Factory farmers do not care about the safety of the consumers nor the safety of the chicken, all the industrial farmers have in mind are how fast they can turn a baby chick into a slaughter size chicken and how to make their chicken big and plumped. Factory farming is not only a health hazard to the well-being of the animals, but the environment, and human beings ;thus free range and sustainable farming need to be put into practice.
It is horrifying to know the fact that the processed food that we eat today is once animals that are processed alive. The ignorance of the companies has caused the suffering of these poor animals. Gale (2013) writes, “.[media] do not tell us that chickens are the most tortured animals in factory farms and that most chickens have to stand on their own feces all day and end up getting litter burn from their manure. hens are often crammed together in cases so tiny that they do not get enough room to even lift a single wing—which then immobilizes them for their entire lives.”
I have always been drawn to chickens since I was a little girl. It was only in my thirty’s that I first came in to contact with chickens on a farm. You would think that a city girl like me would be afraid, nope, I went right in to feed and sat in chicken poop. No one told me I shouldn’t sit in the coop and feed them, but I was fine with it, they calm me. Each year I keep telling myself I will move when I can have my chickens. I will cover the difference between meat and egg layers. I will discuss the different ways to home them, and keep them safe. Why should people keep chickens at all? In this research paper I will go over the information that I have read and how I feel personally about raising and keeping chickens in your back yard.