Industrial Farm Animal Welfare

Chickens are crammed into wire cages with up to 7 hens sharing space less than an A4 piece of paper. Take a minute to think about that. An A4 piece of paper. About the size of an Ipad. These conditions make me disgusted by how little space they share with up to 7 of them. Hens that are providing us with millions of eggs are farmed in totally disgraceful conditions getting fed corn waste and chemicals. From when hens are 18 weeks old they are confined to these wire cages, staked on top of each other for years. Never being able to stretch their wings or walk around again. Standing totally disgraceful conditions getting fed corn waste and chemicals.

Capitol Hill Quackery: Congress Attacks Poultry Growers (again), the House of Appropriations Committee, which is tasked with authorizing the budget for our federal government, decided to push a sneaky “rider” into the budget process that would block the USDA from issuing protections for poultry growers under contract with large companies like Tyson, Perdue and Pilgrim’s Pride (Harive). Most poultry growers are forced to take on massive amounts of debt to secure their contracts with these companies (Harvie). Contract Poultry Farmers Speak Out, Get Heard, the companies lie to the farmers to get them to work for their businesses, even if the farmers know that the business is not a good one.

Factory farms having locked doors only reinforces what some of us already suspect. That they are engaging in activities appalling to the public. Their secrecy is seemingly sustaining their business. Consumers’ ignorance of the meat production business only encourages inhumane animal husbandry. Foer says, “the power brokers of factory farming know that their business model depends on consumers not being able to see (or hear about) what they do.” (pg. 87) This is why we need to educate ourselves on this matter extensively and start actively demanding where our meat is coming from. Advocating for animal welfare is one way we can begin the process of changing or ultimately ending factory farming.

Factory farming is a practice that is used to keep up and sustain the supply and demand for different types of animal meat. A poultry factory farm that will be discussed is Perdue Farms. Perdue Farms is established and operated in the United States and has a processing facility where they raise and slaughter chickens. Perdue Farms is meeting the needs of the consumers by supplying and mass producing poultry for consumption. One may view this of being a success by having a well-established, profitable business that is fulfilling their responsibilities to the consumers. While that may be true, they are not fulfilling their ethical responsibility to the animals. These animals are in close quarters where they are nested in urine and feces. There can even be instances where they will be sitting on or near deceased chickens until their cage is chosen for slaughter. Since these animals are massively produced the use of hormones and antibiotics are used to sustain life and growth. On top of the poor, dirty living conditions these animals are also giving additives that will eventually make it to the consumer. The process has an impact on those employed by the corporation and those who purchase products from them.

A poll conducted by the ASPCA revealed that 94% of Americans believe that production animals, specifically those raised for food, deserve to live a comfortable life free of cruelty and neglect. Despite this belief, many factory farm animals are abused and neglected in such ways that, if witnessed by consumers, would not be accepted. Over 99% of the United State’s farm animals live on factory farms that use them for means of profit, many of them violating the Animal Welfare Act and other laws put in place to protect the humane treatment of animals (ASPCA). This abuse is not limited to any specific type of farm animal. Although different animals are used for different purposes, they all share a common suffering and a need for humane care.

Norcross states that approximately 8 billion chickens are slaughtered each year, with each chicken eater in the US consuming about 25 chickens a year. The unhappiness of chickens is twenty-five times greater than the unhappiness of humans, so, according to Utilitarianism, the abuse of chickens is morally wrong.

Recently, a few of the top chicken producers such as Tyson and Perdue were claimed to treat their chickens inhumanely. Not just that, many of the large food companies such as McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Chick-fil-A are being exposed by their contract farmers. To create a voice for the animal, many articles, websites, and books were created, dedicating to petition for animal rights, especially for chickens.

Layers practically spent their youth to maturity confined in cages no bigger than their bodies. The cages are densely packed next and on top of one another. Laying hens are frequently starved to maximize their eggs production. The goal is to maximize production with amount of effort. The way I see it: It is like life in prison for those hens. They cannot move and even flap their wings. Living in overcrowded area, it is a natural tendency for the birds to peck at each other. To solve that problem, new born chicks will get part of their top beaks cut off without any painkillers. Many chicks experience pain and unable eat for days. When hens can no longer produce eggs, they are killed and sent elsewhere. Why would one kill those hens? Can we still use them for

The living conditions for these poor animals in these factory farms are disgusting. According to the article “Visualise Factory Farming”, nearly 20,000 pigs are sometimes kept in a building just one football field in size, and as many as 20,000 to 30,000 chickens are stuffed inside of a building only 400 feet long. Now housing one to two million birds on one site has become relatively common. Along with that, in yet another article, it is stated “pigs and chickens, in particular, are warehoused in dim, crowded and suffocating conditions -- a cross between an 18th century slave ship and 1930’s mental institution.” This happens in places known as concentrated animal feeding operations(CAFOs), where 99 percent of the meat you find in a grocery store comes from. I find it hard to believe this kind of treatment to animals is legal.

There is a large problem of animal cruelty linked to the food industry in the United States. Countless slaughterhouses, chicken farms, and other meat producers have been found guilty of harming animals and killing them inhumanely. This is something that clearly needs to change.

America is a country of meat lovers! Yet a lot of us don’t know about how most of these farm animals are killed. Farm operators know what they are doing is wrong and they will try hard to hide these gruesome images from the public. A new popular method used by the agriculture lobby is the ag-gag law. This law makes it so it’s a crime to secretly videotape industrial feedlot and slaughterhouses to expose animal mistreat and abuse. Already seven states have this law in the book! In a nation that lavishes loves and has legitimate securities on house pets, processing plant animals are forgotten and exposed to the harsh elements.

Not only are chickens abused in treated disgustingly, they are fed antibiotic that can harm Americans. Companies force farmers to add certain antibiotics to what they feed animals. These chemicals can cause

Animal rights are practically non-existent in many different ways today. Factory farming is probably the worst thing they can do to the poor helpless animals. Factory farming effects chickens, cows, pigs, and many other animals that are used for food, milk and eggs. One of the biggest organizations against factory farming is called Compassion Over Killing (COK). They go to great lengths to protest and inform people about animal cruelty.

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

The stress factors like frustration, fear, and pain may usually suggest the reduction of welfare. In Peach Farm, it has been observed that the hens are extremely flighty and tend to pile into corners of the cage when a person approaches. This may indicate that the hens are suffering from some degrees of fear or stress. Although we do not have the biological evidence measured to evaluate the stress response, I suspect the reason for the fear that developed in laying hens when a person approaches, has to do with the experience that hens had with human handling before. A research explained that exposure to humans in conjunction with auditory and visual enrichment may build up fear reactions in caged hens (Reed et al, 1993). However, the animal observation from Olive Farm shows that hens had no intention to avoid people. This indicates that there is potentially less fear developed in hens from Olive Farm, than hens from Peach