However, it can be argued that breeding sows and egg-laying chickens suffer a far worse fate than that of the veal-calf, if for no other reason than that they are required to live a similar lifestyle much longer.
Shall we start with sows? Sows (female pigs) are required to spend much of their lives in gestation cages. These are cages so small that the pigs, much like the veal calves, cannot turn around, sit down, or move their bodies. Their cages are so small that these poor animals' teats often hang into the cage adjacent to their own. Here, the pigs are artificially inseminated over and over again. They are essentially baby-machines. The only time they are able to stand and move is when they are nursing their young. They are moved to equally uncomfortable cages, in which there are slots in the metal floor for waste to fall through. There is so little room and the floor is so awkward, that the sows often mistakenly crush their young. Also, the piglets can fall through the cracks in the cages if they are below average size and have been known to clog local sewage pipes. How disturbing is that? (To you, maybe not so much. Maybe you are the type who drowns an unwanted litter of kittens. But to me, a drowning piglet is a depressing thought.)
As if this space confinement and constant state of pregnancy and birth were not enough to wear out a pig, pigs are also social animals. Additionally, pigs are some of the smartest farm animals. They are intelligent enough to play and understand basic video games like pong. This unfulfilled desire to socialize coupled with the incessant boredom such intelligent animals endure while lying on their side staring into the abyss all day causes many of these poor creatures great psychological trauma. (Again, maybe you do not believe that animals cannot experience psychological trauma, but I, for one, do not believe human beings are the only sentient creatures.)
Shall we move onto the chickens? Chickens are put in what are known as battery cages. The chickens are so tightly packed into these cages, that common farming practice requires chicks to have their beaks and claws clipped (without anaesthesia) soon after birth. This is done so hastily that many chicks beaks are cut so short they have trouble eating. :( Of course, this only applies to the female chicks. Male chicks are dumped into fertilizer mixture (ALIVE) and chopped into pieces or buried alive. . . Depending on the process of fertilization. (Perhaps they are the lucky ones who don't suffer for years.)
ANYway, back to the female chickens, or hens I guess I should say. When the chicks are all grown up into hens they are shoved into these horrendous cages. So, these cages are twenty inches wide and there are 6-8 birds in each. (You do the math, they can't MOVE just like the sows and veal calves.) The cages are made of wire to make egg collection easier, obviously this is a strain on the hens' feet, often leading to broken bones. Often the hens are so crowded that heads and wings can get caught in the wire cages, leading to further injury. Possibly worst of all is that, with so many birds per cage, some of them can't reach the food or water. In the least sanitary of these egg-producing factories, (what we commonly refer to as 'farms,' but I believe the word has become a misnomer) chickens live with dead birds in their cages and can become covered in their own, and others' feces.
When these hens productivity rate drops, they are shocked into producing one more round of eggs. How, you ask? Starvation.
So, basically, these 2 situations are just as awful as the veal industry, and I believe if we could just get the word out, egg consumption and pork consumption would also drop by 2/3rds per person within the next 20 years. (Of course, with a growing population this doesn't mean a 2/3rds reduction in the amount of hopeless, helpless, agonizing, SENTIENT beings.) There are already replacements for eggs in baked goods. (Ener-G egg replacer is a good brand, and entirely vegan, and in my experience, perfectly usable in all baking procedures.) And, like U.S. Americans have learned to live without the taste of veal, they would learn to live without the taste of eggs. People just are not that cruel when it comes down to it. They are just ignorant of our current food production methods.
Don't start thinking that just because these three practices are highlighted in this post, the rest of industry factory farming is a walk in the park for animals. It's not. And I'm sure I'll go into details on some later post. However, as made evident by California's passage of proposition 2, I believe these are the practices most likely to be flat-out rejected by all humans with any measure of compassion. They are the most deplorable of all normal 'farming' practices.
Some people, of course, will never get this far. There are those that believe God made us so far above other animals that these other beings can have no feelings, emotional or physical. (Somehow, central nervous systems and brains were reserved for humans?) Today, when I was relaying a story to my father about a cow escaping line for slaughter by bravely jumping a fence and running for her dear life, my father replied coldly with, "Do you really think they're processing like that?" And my response, as an owner of two intelligent cats and an observer of their natures which appear common to all mammals I have ever encountered, was "YES! I DO!"
Tell me, do animals, mammals or otherwise, have way of communicating with their own kind? Tell me, do they have calls that mean 'danger,' calls that mean 'I want to mate,' calls that mean 'I found food?' Tell me, do they have instincts that say run when they hear the call for danger? Do they have internal desires to produce when they hear the call for mating? do they have knowledge that to eat is necessary for survival when they hear the call for food? (The answer, of course, if you believe anything science or observation has to say, is yes.) In 2006, there were studies done which suggest that bottle-nosed dolphins call each other by name–– different whistles for different individuals. (Yes, animals are individuals the last time I checked.)
So, tell me this, when a cow is being led to slaughter by a person (whom s/he have learned to fear through his/her years on the factory farm–– S/he has learned to associate people with pain or at least discomfort.), when in this line to death s/he hears the cries of other cows in pain (as it has been well documented that not all cows are unconscious when slaughtered, despite laws requiring otherwise–– the assembly line of animals moves too quickly for workers to keep up.), does my father honestly believe that the mix of fear (person) and pain (as represented by the other cows), would not cause a cow to instinctually escape? Of course, as most cows are out of shape due to the unnatural diets and living restrictions to which they have been subject throughout life, they are unable to jump fences and outrun factory workers. The instinct to escape pain may not be "processing" in the same way a human subject to genocide or way would process their desire to escape pain. . . But at the end of the line, yes, neither human beings and other animals want to be injured. And when they process they are about to be injured, and have the means to prevent it, either will do so. So yes, the cow processed. The cow understood that something bad awaited and ran. . . that is called processing.
GEESH, some people and their superiority complexes.
So, I suppose I should get into safety issues and workers rights, but truly I am burnt out from this long rant. However, I feel guilty be allowing you to remain ignorant. Tomorrow I will by flying to Arizona. Over the course of the plane ride, I will certainly have more than enough time to write about it.
Below are some pictures of some of animal sanctuary's, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting abandoned farm animals and changing legislation regarding industry factory farms, adopted barnyard friends. I love them all though I have never met them. My heart just automatically goes out to those beings, great or small, who have spent much of their life suffering.
Oh, I thought of another disturbing fact just to put the icing on the cake about the disgusting nature of so-called "farming" practices. Did you know that both bulls and male turkeys are MANUALLY masturbated? Yep, something that would be considered bestiality, and thus ILLEGAL, outside the world of the factory farm is a legal and everyday practice of these horrendous places.
P.P.S. In case you clicked on the 'prayer' tag and are wondering why that links you to this page, it is because I have been praying for the lives of these animals since I was four years old, when I gave up devouring their flesh. The information on this page represents one of the many cries of my heart, and often times the most dominant cry. I am not ashamed of this, though many would accuse me of being too concerned about animals when there are people suffering. Reducing the number of factory farms does help people, I promise to explain in detail one of these days. Besides, helping people and praying for animals are by NO MEANS mutually exclusive activities. We should all do more of both.
