Factory Farming
Gone are the days of the family farm. Farming has become a massive, corporate-owned business like many others, with responsibilities only to its stockholders, and the goal of making maximum profit in minimum time. Further information about family farms versus factory farming can be found here.
What is factory farming?
From FactoryFarming.com:
Factory farming is an attitude that regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited for profit.
In animal agriculture, this attitude has led to institutionalized animal cruelty, massive environmental destruction and resource depletion, and animal and human health risks.
Interested in making the switch to "humane", organic meat? Learn whether it's as good as you expect here.
Animal Cruelty Issues
Animal Cruelty Issues
Poultry
In factory farming, each chicken is given less than half of one square foot of space. Turkeys receive less than three square feet. After they hatch, birds of both kinds have the ends of their beaks cut off to prevent them from attacking each other in their crowded conditions. 
This process is known as “debeaking”, and has been compared to having the ends of your fingers removed. Additionally, turkeys have the ends of their toes and their snoods cut off. All of these tasks are performed without anesthesia. (link)
Both chickens and turkeys in modern factory farms have been genetically engineered and pumped with growth hormones; as a result they grow much faster than ever before. For example, in the 1960's, it took a turkey 32 weeks to reach slaughter size, but now, it takes only 13-16 weeks. In the 1950’s, it took a chicken 84 days to reach five pounds. Today, it takes 45 days[1] , meaning that they are not even old enough to cluck yet when they die.
"[B]roilers now grow so rapidly that the heart and lungs are not developed well enough to support the remainder of the body, resulting in congestive heart failure and tremendous death losses." —Martin D, "Researcher Studying Growth-Induced Diseases in Broilers," Feedstuffs, May 26, 1997. “Is it more profitable to grow the biggest bird and have increased mortality....[S]imple calculations suggest that it is better to get the weight and ignore the mortality.” — Tabler GT, Mendenhall AM, “Broiler Nutrition, Feed Intake and Grower Economics,” Avian Advice 5(4) (Winter 2003): 8–10.
When it comes to turkeys, they have been bred to have such large breasts that they cannot even mount and mate on their own. A method of artificial insemination is their sole means of reproduction. Breeding toms are kept in the dark for most of their lives and milked for their semen once or twice a week, while females are “cracked open” (the term used by industry representatives) twice a week. Their legs are clamped into metal forceps and they are inseminated, one after the other, as workers hurry to inseminate between 1,200 and 1,400 turkeys within two hours. One factory worker described how young turkeys are curious and friendly with employees “until the first couple AIs—and then they run from you…”[2]
Like chickens, turkeys suffer from their considerable growth, leading an industry journal to state:
Turkeys have been bred to grow faster and heavier but their skeletons haven't kept pace, which causes 'cowboy legs'. Commonly, the turkeys have problems standing and fall and are trampled on or seek refuge under feeders, leading to bruises and downgradings as well as culled or killed birds.[3]
Turkeys and chickens are transported in open-air crates to the slaughterhouse. This results in high mortality as the birds are exposed to all sorts of weather, but each chicken or turkey is worth so little that it is cheaper overall for the industry to use open-air crates.
They are handled roughly at the slaughterhouse, where they are unloaded by forklift and dropped onto a conveyor belt. With thousands of birds to be processed every hour, there is no reason for employees to stop and pick up the individual birds who miss the belt and fall to the ground.
When it comes time to slaughter the birds, they are hung by their feet on a moving rail and dragged through the stunning tank, an electrified water bath meant to stun and immobilize them. These are often set lower than is necessary to truly render the birds unconscious out of concerns that high voltage might damage the carcass and therefore diminish its value.
They are then carried past the tank to have their throats cut either by a mechanical blade or a plant employee. Often, struggling birds are cut improperly; as a result they are moved, fully conscious, to the scalding tank, in which they are boiled alive. This occurrence is so common that the industry has a term for it; they call these millions of birds “redskins”.[4]
For more pictures, please click here. Warning: Graphic.
Beef
The average beef cow is born and lives on the range for the first months or years of its life. Medical care is often not provided to these animals; consequently, many fall ill and even die. A particularly common problem amongst cattle is known as "cancer eye", wherein a form of malignant cancer develops in the cow's eye and eventually eats away at its face. [5]
Factory farms identify their cows in the same manner that cowboys on the range used; that is, with the use of a hot branding iron. While being branded, the animals bellow and scream. “Waddling”—cutting out a chunk of the skin hanging beneath the cow’s neck—is also often used as a method of identification. [6]
A few months before they are to be killed, range cattle—confused by the presence of humans and their sudden confinement—are rounded up and brought into feedlots to be fattened on unnaturally rich diets that cause metabolic problems. There they are crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden feedlots.
Cattle may be transported to several different places during their lives, often up to hundreds or thousands of miles in a single trip. These long journeys, during which the animals are not fed or watered and are exposed to all types of weather, are extremely stressful and often result in death. This “shipping fever” costs the industry over $1 billion a year. [7]
Once they get to the slaughterhouse, the cows are meant to be stunned through a mechanical blow to the head; however, with 250 cows to be processed every hour, this is often done improperly and the animals struggle, still alive.
In an April 2001 article, the Washington Post reported:
The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren't.
They blink. They make noises, he said softly. The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around. Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. They die, said Moreno, piece by piece...
"In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis," said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant. "I've seen it happen. And I've talked to other veterinarians. They feel it's out of control." [8]
Professor of animal science at Colorado State University Temple Grandin was commissioned by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to tour slaughterhouses in Ontario and Quebec. Her conclusions?
"Canada is falling behind the U.S...Plants in Ontario and Quebec get failing grades".[9]
During her visit to Canada, Grandin noted:
Out of five beef plants, two failed because of excessive use of electric prods, cattle falling on slippery floors as they lined up to be stunned, and three cattle were actually hanging upside down (hung by a chain around one leg) and bellowing as their throats were being slit.[10]
For pictures, please click here. Warning: Graphic
Fish
Many people do not realize that factory farms exist for fish as well as for land animals, but they do. In fact, one in five fish eaten today were raised in a factory farm.[11] Their existence is the result of overfishing in the oceans--there are literally not enough fish in the sea to support our avarice. As agribusiness magazine Foodstuffs, explained:
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.[12]
But factory farmed fish is not without its problems. The fish are raised as intensively as any land animal, with thousands upon thousands living in controlled indoor tanks or specially sectioned off coastal estuaries.
Crowded in feces-laden water, the fish are particularly susceptible to disease and thus many fish farms make liberal use of "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."[13]
Once they are mature, the fish are carried in oxygenated tanker trucks to a processing plant, where they are dumped into mesh cages. As the water drains, the fish who survived the stressful trip die of suffocation.
There is a particular type of irony in raising farmed fish to limit the depletion of wild populations, considering that in 1997, for example, it took 10 million tons of wild-caught fish to feed and raise 29 million tons of farmed salmon, sea bass, halibut and flounder. (An additional 22 million tons of wild-caught fish were used to feed pigs and cows that same year.)[14]
Pork
(Information in the "Pork" section compiled here. Under construction.)
Only pigs in movies spend their lives running across sprawling pastures and relaxing in the sun. On any given day in the United States, there are approximately 60 million pigs living on factory farms, and about 100 million are killed for food every year.[15, 16] Factory-farming conditions are no better in Canada, which annually exports more than 6 million live pigs to the U.S. for slaughter.[17] Managers of Canada’s largest pig exporter faced cruelty charges after 10,000 dead and dying pigs were found on the company’s farms. Investigators found dead pigs stacked behind barns and dead piglets in manure tanks, and all the live pigs “were in some form of distress.”[18]
Mother pigs (sows), who account for about 6 million of the pigs in the U.S., spend most of their lives in individual “gestation” crates, which are about 7 feet long and 2 feet wide—too small for them even to turn around.[19] 
After giving birth to piglets, sows are moved to “farrowing” crates, which are wide enough for them to lie down and nurse their babies but still not large enough for them to turn around or build nests for their young.[20]
Piglets are taken from their mothers when they are as young as 10 days old. Once her piglets are gone, each sow is impregnated again, and the cycle continues for three or four years before she is slaughtered.[21, 22] This intensive confinement produces stress- and boredom-related behaviors, such as chewing on cage bars or obsessively pressing on water bottles.[23, 24]
After they are taken from their mothers, piglets are packed into pens until they are separated to be raised for breeding or meat.[25] Because they, too, are overcrowded and prone to stress-related behaviors (such as cannibalism and tail-biting), farmers chop off the piglets’ tails and use pliers to break off the ends of their teeth—with no anesthetics.[26] For identification purposes, farmers also rip chunks out of the young animals’ ears.[27]
Transportation and Slaughter
Farms all over North America ship piglets (called “feeder pigs”) to Corn Belt states such as Illinois and Indiana for “growing” and “finishing.” The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that fewer than 30 percent of weaned piglets spend their entire lives on the same farm.[28]
During transport on trucks, piglets weighing up to 100 pounds are given no more than 2.4 square feet of space, and farmers are warned that the piglets “probably will get sick within a few days after arrival.”[29] One study confirmed that vibrations, like those made by a moving truck, are “very aversive” to pigs. When pigs “were trained to press a switch panel to stop for 30 seconds vibration and noise in a transport simulator … the animals worked very hard to get the 30 seconds of rest.”[30]
Once pigs reach “market weight” (about 250 to 270 pounds), the industry refers to them as “hogs,” and they are sent to be slaughtered. The animals are shipped from all over the U.S. and Canada to slaughterhouses, which are mostly in the Midwest. There are no laws to regulate the duration of transport, frequency of rest, or provisions of food and water for the animals.[31,32] Pigs tend to resist getting into the trailers, which can be made from converted school buses or multidecked trucks with steep ramps, so workers use electric prods to move them along. There is no federal law to regulate the voltage or usage of electric prods on pigs, and a study showed that when the electric prods were used, pigs “vocalized, lost their balance and tr[ied] to jump out of the loading area” and that their “[h]eart rate and body temperature was significantly higher … when compared to pigs loaded using a hurdle [movable chute].”[33] A former pig transporter told PETA that pigs are “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out.”[34] According to industry reports, more than 100,000 pigs die on the way to slaughter each year, and more than 400,000 are crippled from the journey by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse.[35] A Michigan State University study concluded that the number of pigs who died during transportation increased 46.7 percent over a five-year period and that the increase was attributable to “[r]ough handling and incorrect management at the time of loading and transportation.”[36]
A typical slaughterhouse kills about 1,000 hogs every hour.[37] The sheer number of animals killed makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. Because of improper stunning, many hogs are alive when they reach the scalding water bath, which is intended to soften their skin and remove their hair.[38] The USDA documented 14 humane-slaughter violations at one processing plant, where inspectors found hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.”[39] An industry report explains that “continuous pig squealing is a sign of … rough handling and excessive use of electric prods.” The report found that the pigs at one federally inspected slaughter plant squealed 100 percent of the time “because electric prods were used to force pigs to jump on top of each other.”[40] A PETA investigation found that workers at an Oklahoma farm were killing pigs by slamming the animals’ heads against the floor and beating them with a hammer.[41]
For more pictures, please click here.Warning: Graphic
Foie Gras
Please visit our page on Foie Gras here.
Veal
Please visit our page on veal here.
Eggs
In Canada, 98%--or 26 million--of the nation's egg-laying chickens are kept in battery cages [42], small wire cages with slanted floors in which 5 to 7 hens remain for their entire lives. 
The cages are approximately 20 by 20 inches square, meaning that the birds do not even have enough room to stretch one wing. Each bird has about 1/2 square foot of space, basically about 3/4 the area of a standard piece of 8 1/2" X 11" paper. [43] They stay in these cages for anywhere from one year to a year and a half, before being classified as "spent hens". They are then killed and turned into soup, pot pies, or any low-grade meat product that hides bruising.[44]
In a particularly famous case of cruelty, 15,000 of these "spent hens" were thrown live into a wood chipper in a California farm in 2003. Though the public raised considerable outcry, the owners of the egg farm were not prosecuted by the district attorney, who described the killing of hens with a wood chipper as "common industry practice."[45]
To increase the laying capacity of hens who might otherwise be considered spent, the industry occasionally utilizes what is known as "force-moulting". This practice is more common in Canada than in the United States, and involves starving chickens for up to 18 days in total darkness in an attempt to shock their body into another laying cycle. They are also not allowed any water during this period. 5 to 10% of the birds die during this period, and those that survive lose up to a quarter of their body weight.[46]
Because these chickens are bred for maximum egg-laying capacity, any males are surplus. They are disposed of generally through two common methods: either simply throwing them into dumpsters to starve to death, or grinding them up alive.[47] 
Neither process resembles anything remotely close to humane; in the first, the chicks are left to starve to death or are crushed to death under the weight of many others, and in the second: "Even after twenty seconds," described one research scientist, "there were only partly damaged animals with whole skulls".[48]
Intensive confinement causes the birds to peck aggressively at the other hens in their cage. Rather than give them more space, the industry debeaks the chickens during the first days of their lives. To learn more about debeaking and what it is, please click the Poultry section.
Ailments of all kinds are common among these birds. Because the battery cages are stacked row upon row, 2 to 8 cages high, chickens in lower cages are covered in the feces of those above them. Foot disorders are frequent as the birds struggle to stand on the tilted wire floors. Many chickens lose the majority of their feathers as frustration and anxiety cause them to rub against the bars of their cages; additionally, being trampled by their cagemates contributes to feather loss. Severe osteoporosis and premature death are also common. [49]
Ammonia rising from manure piles beneath the cages causes a condition known as "ammonia burn", a corneal ulcer that often causes blindness.[50] Occasionallly, birds escape through the bars of their cages and fall below them. They are trapped there in the manure piles 3 feet deep. [51]
Battery cages have aroused the ire of compassionate people worldwide. In the EU, they are being phased out in favour of "enriched cages", which are slightly larger and allow the birds some litter in which to scratch. (Enriched cages are certainly a step up from standard battery ones, but scientific evidence indicates that the welfare of the chickens is still significantly compromised.[52]) Switzerland banned battery cages in 1992, and Germany is banning them in 2007 and enriched cages by 2012. In 2004, the EU introduced a mandatory labelling program that identifies whether the chickens are caged, free range, raised in a barn, etc.[53]
There are no similar legally-enforced laws in North America, where conditions for egg-laying hens continue to be bleak and finding out where supermarket eggs come from is a challenge. Currently, the only label with third party certification is "certified organic", which requires that the chickens be fed an organic diet, and that they have access to the outdoors. It does not require humane slaughter or transport, however. Labels such as "free range" and "free run" are sometimes the exact opposite of what they imply. (Learn more about organic, free range, and free run here.)
“Just because it says free-range does not mean that it is welfare-friendly.”
—Dr. Charles Olentine, editor of Egg Industry magazine, an industry trade journal [54]
Buying organic is by far the best way to get eggs (with the exception of your own backyard coop, of course!) but a better way to help chickens is to avoid egg products completely. After all, male chicks are still considered surplus even in the organic egg industry, and spent organic hens often end up in the same slaughterhouses as their battery caged counterparts.[55] Learn more about organic eggs at our page here.
Footage taken at a veterinarian-owned battery cage farm in Guelph, Ontario showed a complete lack of concern for the welfare of the chickens. (See it here.)
“Government and industry are constantly reassuring consumers that things are better for farm animals here in Canada,” stated Debra Probert, executive director of the Vancouver Humane Society. The VHS began its Chicken Out! campaign in 2005. “We have long suspected that’s not the case and now we have the proof. This footage shows filthy, disgusting, hideously abusive conditions."[56]
For more pictures, please click here. Warning: Graphic
Dairy
Like humans, cows must have babies in order to produce milk. (Coincidentally, the mother cows' gestation period is nine months long, just like ours.) In the dairy industry, therefore, cows are kept in a state of almost constant pregnancy; two months after their calves are born, the cows are re-impregnated via artificial insemination.
In order to get the maximum amount of milk from each cow, calves are taken away from their mothers within days or even hours of birth. Female calves are generally kept to replace spent dairy cows; male ones are sold for beef and veal. It has been said that there is a chunk of veal in every glass of milk. Learn more about the veal industry here.
Canadian cows produce approximately 9,519 kg of milk every year, seven times more than they would in nature. [57] When milk production drops after four or five years, the spent cows are sent to slaughter and turned into hamburger. (The natural lifespan of a cow is 20 to 25 years.) [58] Constant pregnancy and milkings are physically demanding, as is the unnaturally rich diet the cows are fed in order to maximize milk output. The result is a myriad of conditions; these include ketosis, laminitis, Bovine Leukemia Virus, Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus, and Johne's disease, as well as mastitis.[59]
Mastitis, a stress-related bacterial infection characterized by a painful, grotesque swelling of the udder, reduces the quality of the milk by changing its composition and increasing its somatic cell (pus) count.[60] The National Mastitis Council estimates that the condition results in excess costs of $200 per year per cow. In Quebec, in fact, it is the second most common reason for culling. [61]
Interested in cutting milk from your diet but concerned about calcium? The good news is that dairy by no means has a monopoly on calcium, and in fact may actually contribute to calcium deficiency.[62] Learn more about non-dairy sources of calcium here.
“I no longer recommend dairy products...[T]here was a time when cow’s milk was considered very desirable. But research, along with clinical experience, has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation.” —Dr. Benjamin Spock
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References:
[1] Compassion Over Killing, 45 Days: The Life and Death of a Broiler Chicken [2] Farm Sanctuary News, “Unnatural Breeding Techniques and Results in Modern Turkey Production”, Winter 2007 [3] Farm Sanctuary, Poultry Production [4] United Poultry Concerns, Chicken:The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food by Steve Striffler, Yale University Press, 2005 [5] Horsefellas, Cow Cruelty [6] Farm Sanctuary, Factory Beef Production [7] Merck Veterinary Manual, Shipping Fever Pneumonia, 2006 [8] Warrick, Joby, The Washington Post, "They Die Piece by Piece" 10 April 2006 [9] Harpur, Tom, The Toronto Star, "Western Culture Floats on a Sea of Blood", 21 September 2003 [10] ibid. [11] Farm Sanctuary, Seafood Production [12] ibid. [13] ibid. [14] Melville, Nancy A., HealthSCOUT, "The Downside of Fish Farms" 23 September [15] USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, The PigSite.com, 20 Nov. 2003. [16] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Pigmeat, Slaughtered/Production Animals (Head) 2002,” 10 Jun. 2003. [17] United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service, The PigSite.com, Sep. 2003. [18] Kelly Pedro, “Pigs Found Dead, Dying. Seven Men Have Been Charged Over the Grim Discovery Involving 10,000 Animals,” The London Free Press, 15 Sep. 2003. [19] Marc Kaufman, "In Pig Farming, Growing Concern," The Washington Post, 18 Jun. 2001. [20] ibid. [21] A.J. Zanella and O. Duran, “Pig Welfare During Loading and Transportation: A North American Perspective,” I Conferencia Virtual Internacional Sobre Qualidade de Carne Suina, via Internet, 16 Nov. 2000. [22] Marc Kaufman, “In Pig Farming, Growing Concern,” The Washington Post, 18 Jun. 2001. [23] A.J. Zanella and O. Duran, “Pig Welfare During Loading and Transportation: A North American Perspective,” I Conferencia Virtual Internacional Sobre Qualidade de Carne Suina, via Internet, 16 Nov. 2000. [24] Marc Kaufman, “In Pig Farming, Growing Concern,” The Washington Post, 18 Jun. 2001. [25]William G. Luce et al., “Managing the Sow and Litter,” Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Mar. 1995. [26] ibid. [27] L. Neil Burcham, "Identify Pigs by Ear Notching,"Cooperative Extension Service, New Mexico State University, Nov. 1997. [28] Dennis A. Shields and Kenneth H. Mathews Jr., “Interstate Livestock Movements,” United States Department of Agriculture, Jun. 2003. [29] John C. Rea and George W. Jesse, “Managing Purchased Feeder Pigs,” Department of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1 Oct. 1993. [30] A.J. Zanella and O. Duran, “Pig Welfare During Loading and Transportation: A North American Perspective,” I Conferencia Virtual Internacional Sobre Qualidade de Carne Suina, via Internet, 16 Nov. 2000. [31] Dennis A. Shields and Kenneth H. Mathews Jr., “Interstate Livestock Movements,” United States Department of Agriculture, Jun. 2003. [32] A.J. Zanella and O. Duran, “Pig Welfare During Loading and Transportation: A North American Perspective,” I Conferencia Virtual Internacional Sobre Qualidade de Carne Suina, via Internet, 16 Nov. 2000. [33] ibid. [34] Carla Bennett, “The Joy and Sorrow of Pigs,” Animal Times, Fall 1996. [35] Joe Vansickle, "Quality Assurance Program Launched," National Hog Farmer, 15 Feb. 2002. [36] A.J. Zanella and O. Duran, “Pig Welfare During Loading and Transportation: A North American Perspective,” I Conferencia Virtual Internacional Sobre Qualidade de Carne Suina, via Internet, 16 Nov. 2000. [37] Lance Gay, "Faulty Practices Result in Inhumane Slaughterhouses," Scripps Howard News Service, Feb. 2001. [38] 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. [39] ibid. [40] Temple Grandin, “2001 Restaurant Audits of Stunning and Handling in Federally Inspected Beef and Pork Slaughter Plants,” 2002 Meat Institute Animal Handling and Stunning Conference, Colorado State University: Department of Animal Sciences, 2002. [41] Marc Kaufman, “Ex-Pig Farm Manager Charged With Cruelty,” The Washington Post, 9 Sep. 2001. [42] Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, "Battery Cages" [43] Amie Hafner, "Oral Statement by MFA investigator Amie Hafner Presented on Thursday, October 18, 2001 at the Mercy For Animals Press Conference at the Ohio Statehouse Atrium", 2001 [44] Farm Sanctuary, "Egg Production", 2007 [45] ibid. [46] ibid. [47] ibid. [48] F. Henry, Megafarming: size brings conflict. The Plain Dealer. 1 June, 2003 [49] Amie Hafner, "Oral Statement by MFA investigator Amie Hafner Presented on Thursday, October 18, 2001 at the Mercy For Animals Press Conference at the Ohio Statehouse Atrium", 2001 [50] Vancouver Humane Society, "Canadian Egg Farm Expose" 13 October 2005 [51] Vancouver Humane Society, Battery Egg Farms: Alternatives, 2007 [52] ibid. [54] Charles Olentine, "Welfare and the Egg Industry: The Best Defense Is an Offense," Egg Industry, October 2002, p. 24. [55] Vancouver Humane Society, Battery Egg Farms: Alternatives, 2007 [56] Vancouver Humane Society, "Canadian Egg Farm Expose" 13 October 2005 [57] Veg.ca, Milk: A Natural Choice? [58] Dr. Bob's All Creatures Site, Life Span of Animals, 2006 [59] Farm Sanctuary, Dairy Production [60] Veg.ca, Milk: A Natural Choice? [61] "Symposium Dedicated to Understanding Bovine Mastitis Held in Quebec." Canada NewsWire release, 20 Oct 2004. [62] Harvard School of Public Health, Calcium and Milk, 2007
