Factory Farms; The Horrible Truth

THE TRUTH ABOUT FACTORY FARMS

 

“Factory Farms” in 2016 will raise (torture) 65 BILLION animals worldwide solely for the sake of around 5.5 billion flesh eating people! Those 65 Billion defenseless Chickens, Cows and Pigs live their lives trapped in tiny areas, while being fed unnatural grain-based diets of genetically modified corn and soy beans which is a far cry from their normal diet of seeds, green plants, vegetables, fruit, grass, insects and worms. Their food is full of antibiotics and hormones to maximize their growth in short periods of time for profits.

 

 

 

These confined spaces create very high stress for the birds which in turn causes abnormal pecking to both themselves and others resulting in horribly painful injuries that go untreated and festering till death.

 

 

 

 

Tiny 18″ wide cages hold 10 hens but each hen has a wing span of over 32″. Imagine being a bird who NEVER is allowed to open its wings which can literally rot off!

 

Young female chicks are “debeaked” to prevent them from stress pecking and cannibalism. Beaks have many nerves which results in very painful and traumatic experiences.

 

 

Birds which are very clean animals are forced to urinate and defecate on one another causing disease to run ramped. Many animals die and survivors are forced to live with their rotting dead cage mates to the end.

 

 

 

 

 

Poultry Prisons;

The world’s tens of billions of meat chickens AKA “broilers” grow at a freakishly fast pace. So fast in fact their legs fail to keep up and are unable to support themselves making it impossible to walk.

 

 

Modern broilers spend their short 7 week lives on top piles of their own waste encrusted bedding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calves gain weight on an unnatural diet to reach market weight in as little as 6 months.

 

 

There’s been a 272% rise in the number of dairy cows in the US, from 2.5 million in 1997 up to 9.3 million in 2008.

Due to toxic drugs and artificial hormones, the average cow today produces 4X more milk than cows in 1950.

Factory farm operators impregnate via artificial insemination forcing their bodies to produce milk nonstop.

Cows may be dosed with Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) another unnatural production booster which is the lead cause of mastitis, an extremely painful inflammation of the animals’ udder.

 

 

24.6 MILLION pounds of antibiotics per year are administered to US livestock just to keep them alive long enough for slaughter.

 

 

Calves raised for beef are subject to mutilations such as;

DEHORNING

 

 

 

CASTRATION AND

 

 

 

BRANDING

Branding requires irons heated up to 900 degrees held against their skin for several agonizing seconds.

 

 

 

 

Pain relief is not provided even though each procedure is known to cause excruciating pain and extreme fear in the minds of these very mild natured animals.

 

 

 

 

 

Sows spend their entire lives in metal crates. At just 7′ long x 2′ wide they’re NEVER able to simply turn around or curl up for comfort.

Excruciating stress induced behaviors, such as chewing on steel bars is common.

Like all female factory farmed animals, sows are impregnated over and over again artificially, this cycle lasts up to 4 years.

 

 

The floors have slats so the manure can fall through. This design exposes the sows to high levels of ammonia and respiratory disease is a frequent occurrence.

 

Once their bodies give out they are sent to slaughter.

 

 

Piglets are torn from their distraught Mothers only 10 days after birth.

 

 

 

 

Like cows, piglets also undergo a series of horrible mutilations, such as;

TAIL CLIPPING

 

 

TEETH TRIMMING AND

 

TAKE JUST ONE SECOND TO IMAGINE HOW THIS FEELS!

 

 

 

 

AND CASTRATION

 

 

 

These torturous and barbaric acts are usually done with common house hold tools and always without pain killers.

Farms all over North America ship piglets AKA “feeder pigs” to Corn Belt states such as Illinois and Indiana for “growing” or “finishing”.

They travel in all weather extremes for thousands of miles.

Pigs freeze to death in winter and die of heat exhaustion in summer.

 

 

 

 

By the time the survivors reach their destination nearly HALF A MILLION are crippled and nearly all are sick. After which, the pigs spend their entire lives in extremely crowded pens.

 

 

Note: Pigs are highly intelligent creatures, smarter than dogs and 3 year old children!

 

 

 

Like most animals pigs have complex emotions and it’s well known they feel just as much pain as you do.

 

 

 

Due to the high kill rate, deaths are painful and inhumane.

 

 

When they reach their scalding hot water baths most are usually still alive because of improper stunning methods.

 

 

Hot water baths soften the skin and remove hair to prepare them for butcher.

 

 

 

 

Note: We only touched on three types of animals here, there are many more other factory farmed animals that have similar if not more alarming facts.

 

 

 

Factory Farms account for 38% of methane (CH4) emissions.

 

 

67% of water near poultry farms and 31% of water near pig farms contained antibiotics.

35,000 miles of river in 22 states are polluted by waste from animal agriculture.

 

 

Tyson Foods Inc. ranks 2^nd largest polluter of US waterways.

 

Tyson Foods Inc. ranks 2^nd largest polluter of US waterways.

 

Less than half of factory farms have permits to drain waste from their cesspools but 3/4’s contribute to pollution, unregulated.

And all are largely exempt from standard water and air pollution regulations.

These cesspools are several footballs fields in length and up to 20′ deep. All are prone to leaks most of which ends up in the public drinking water supply.

 

 

 

Fiesteria, a microscopic organism that feeds off of phosphorus and nitrogen found in manure is a lethal toxin that is harmful to both humans and fish.

In 1991, 1 BILLION fish were killed by fiesteria in Neuse River, North Carolina alone.

 

 

 

In 1999, when hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina at least 5 manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 were completely flooded.

 

 

In 2005, manure spilled from a ruptured tank on a 3,000 head dairy farm in upstate New York. The 3 million gallons of cow manure poured into the Black River, just this spill is estimated to have killed 250,000 fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Factory farm byproducts are of concern to human health;

– Heavy metals

– Pathogenic bacteria (E-coli, salmonella, Listeria viruses, protozoa, and worms)

– Volatile gases

 

Respiratory problems among factory farm workers;

– Chronic bronchitis

– Occupational asthma

– Organic Dust Toxic Syndrome

 

 

 

These odors cause;

– Respiratory disease

– Diarrhea

– Depression

– Violent behavior

– Nausea

– Vomiting

– Headache

– Insomnia

– Coughing

– Appetite loss

– Irritation to the eyes, nose and throat

 

1 in 5 pig farmers has and spreads the methicillin – resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection, which now kills more Americans than AIDS each year.

 

 

 

 

Under current US agriculture policy, the government provides substantial subsidies to farmers who produce grains, particularly corn and soybeans. The cheap, protein rich, genetically modified corn and soybean base gets animals to market weight faster.

 

 

In order to meet the high demand for grain, large corn and soy monocultures have replaced many smaller farms, which rely on the heavy use of pesticides AKA “Roundup”.

 

 

These pesticides and GMO “Roundup Ready” crops are all made by Monsanto.

Along with creating rBGH, Monsanto is responsible for poisoning millions of acres of farm land, which in turn produce cancer causing crops that make billions of animals and people sick.

 

 

 

Naturally cows aren’t built to digest grains. Their multi-chambered digestive tracks are best suited to digest the cellulose in grass. Cows raised on grain develop severe health problems including liver abscesses, bloat and sudden death syndrome.

 

 

 

 

Above is an aerial of Kansas’s cropland.

If we actually ate the food we feed to farmed animals we wouldn’t need to grow anywhere near as much. We could stop destroying the environment and permanently eliminate world hunger.

 

 

 

 

FACT: 1 LB OF BEEF IS EQUAL TO

 

 

 

If every American skipped 1 meal of chicken per week and instead ate a meat free option, it would be like taking 500,000 cars off the road.

 

 

Imagine if everyone ate plant based food 100% of the time.

 

 

Begin opening your mind to feel a deeper sense of belonging to this beautiful planet. Experience those rare, heartwarming and healing waves of human compassion by adopting a meat free life style. Do it for your health, the environment and of course our friends, the animals.

 

Put an end to factory farms and this vile treatment of our animal friends by taking part in The AAA Ballot!!