“We create these animals for our profit and pleasure, playing with their genes, violating their dignity as living creatures, forcing them to lie and live in their own urine and excrement, turning pens into penitentiaries and frustrating their every desire except what is needed to keep them breathing and breeding. And then we complain about the smell.”     -Matthew Scully
Factory farming is the practice of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density. The farm is essentially a factory – with its metal machinery and occasional squeaking. However, this description didn’t include the screams. Our society is showered with images of happy animals running through the fields on Mr. Old MacDonald’s farm, where the cows graze in the meadows and the chickens have the run of the barnyard. But that is not even remotely close to the truth.
The majority of the animals raised for food live miserable lives in intensive confinement in dark, overcrowded facilities, commonly known as factory farms. The competition to produce inexpensive meat, eggs, and dairy products has led the animal agriculture industry to treat animals as objects and commodities. Every year, more than 10 billion land animals, mostly comprised of cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, are slaughtered for American dinner plates. Their lives on factory farms are filled with pain and suffering, most crammed inside filthy cages and crates so small they can’t even turn around. The majority of animals killed for food are chickens. Six to ten egg-laying hens are crammed inside a cage the size of a filing cabinet drawer, and sometimes their feet become so mangled they will grow around the bars of the cage. Chickens and turkeys have their beaks seared off with a hot blade without an anesthetic in order to prevent them from fighting with each other. Cows and female pigs are artificially inseminated to have more babies, until they literally are so weak they die, if they’re not killed first. A few months after a cow is inseminated, she is hooked up to a mechanical milking machine. She is milked 24/7 throughout her pregnancy and after her calf is born until she cannot give any more, then is artificially inseminated again. Using genetic manipulation, extremely powerful hormones, and heavy milking, cows are forced to produce about ten times as much milk as they naturally would. As soon as a calf is born, it is whisked away to make sure that all of the mother’s milk is for production, not for her baby. Cows, as well as every other living creature, are sentient beings who can feel joy, sorrow, and pain. Cows and pigs go through this until slaughter, which is obviously extremely terrifying. Frightened animals are kicked, hit with canes, and shocked with electric prods to herd them to the kill floor. Chickens are shackled upside-down on a conveyor belt while still fully conscious, electrically stunned (which is required by law, but the majority of the time it doesn’t work), and have their throats slit with a mechanical blade. But thousands of animals survive this process and are dismembered or drowned in tanks of scalding hot water while they are still conscious.

…shackled upside-down on a conveyor belt while still fully conscious

Factory farms have overcrowded, unsanitary conditions which cause disease and fighting among animals. The overcrowding requires heavy use of antibiotics in the feed to prevent diseases from spreading among the herds. Growth hormones are used to make the animals gain weight and reach slaughter faster – faster growing, faster slaughter, faster money. In these overcrowded conditions, new bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics are emerging and have the potential to cause yet unknown human suffering and death. Millions of Americans are infected, and thousands die every single year from contaminated animal food products. But despite repeated warnings and protests, the USDA’s meat inspection system remains completely inadequate, and apparently consumers are now being told to “expect” animal products to be tainted. According to John Robbins, author of The Food Revolution, there are 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics administered to livestock in the US every year for purposes other than treating disease, compared to the 3 million pounds administered for Americans annually to treat diseases.
Unavoidably, intensive animal agriculture depletes valuable natural resources. According to Farm Sanctuary, a shelter that rescues provides homes for many abused or neglected farm animals, instead of being used to feed people, the majority of grain harvested in the United States is fed to farm animals. This practice has forced the industry to use vast stretches of land – forests, wetlands, and other wildlife habitats have been destroyed and turned into crop and grazing lands. Sparse fossil fuels, groundwater, and topsoil resources are now disappearing. It takes 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat, but it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. The quantity of waste produced by farm animals in the United States is more than 130 times greater than produced by humans. The agricultural runoff goes into our water, killing millions of fish, and is the main reason why 60% of America’s rivers and streams are damaged today.
Any of these three reasons should make anyone want to abolish factory farming once and for all. First, environmental problems resulting from factory farming – at this rate, it will take from 30 to 50 years until the Ogallala Aquifer runs dry  – the largest underground lake and source of fresh water in the world. Second, human health – there are 80 different antibiotics in cow’s milk. Third, the animals: there are many animals on the slaughtering conveyor belt who are still fully conscious with eyes wide open when skinned and cut apart – they literally die piece by piece. That conveyor belt is commonly called the “disassembly line.” I encourage all of you to think about this the next time you sit down to your eggs, bacon, and glass of milk.