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Sigourney Tuttle
Mrs. Duncan
English 12
November 19, 2015
Torture on Factory Farms
No matter how you look at it, industrial farming has a, well-deserved, bad reputation. Big
corporations dont care what they have to do in order to make more money and that includes
overcrowding feedlots and paying their workers close to nothing. Most people dont understand
how bad the situation is when it comes to raising livestock for food. Americans should stop
buying agricultural products that come from factory farms because they abuse animals,
mistreat their workers, and damage the environment.
The factory farm industries do not see livestock as living animals, instead they see them
as inventory. Therefore, the livestock is not treated with the same compassion as pets or wild
animals. For example, if you look at conventional farming which is another way of saying
factory farming chickens are born in long metal drawers where they get sorted by gender as
soon as they are hatched. Male chicks are seen as useless because they cannot lay eggs, so the
majority of them are killed as part of the sorting process. According to the article, As
McDonalds Signals Major Shift, A Reminder That Cage-Free Does Not Equal Cruelty-Free
by Jon Queally, 260 million are killed each year upon hatching (2). Once the female chicks are

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sorted they will go to large warehouse style chicken barns, where they are kept in battery cages
with other hens. They are packed so tightly that they cant move or fully extend their wings:
95% of egg-laying hens spend their lives in battery cages. Battery cages
commonly hold 5-10 birds, and each chicken may be given an amount of floor
space equivalent to less than a sheet of paper. Constantly rubbing against and
standing on wire cages, hens suffer severe feather loss, and their bodies become
covered with bruises and abrasions. (4)
As a result of the stress caused by their living environment, chickens peck each other. To
minimize fighting and deaths, and to make them easier to handle, the birds are debeaked.
Debeaking is a process where the birds beak is cut off using a heated cauterizing blade.
Dairy cows, just like egg laying hens, are subjected to a similar procedure. Just like egg
laying hens, dairy cows are also put through the same routine because they have to stand in their
own waste among many other cows. Farmers will inject these cows with chemicals so they
produce more milk then they would on a sustainable farm. Once they are no longer able to
produce milk they are sent to feedlots to be slaughtered. Cattle that are raised for beef are also
sent to feedlots where they will live out the rest of their lives in terrible conditions. The heifers
spend the majority of their lives in a space that is smaller than the typical master bedroom of the
three bedroom apartment.
The sustainable way of farming is very different from conventional farming in many
ways. The primary difference is that sustainable farms treat their animals like living beings,
rather than inventory. As such, they roam in pastures instead of being confined, Cattle spend
their entire lives grazing on grassland. The size of the herd is naturally limited by the acreage of

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the grassland. Thus, these animals are not subjected to crowded, disease-promoting conditions of
feedlots stated by Andrea Rock in How Safe Is Your Ground Beef? (21). This also allows them
to be taken care of properly because they arent standing in their own waste and they get proper
medical treatment from veterinarians. Animals raised the conventional way are fed antibiotics
and growth hormones. Cattle on feedlots are given diets that they cant digest and is only
partially made up of food that was meant to be eaten by them, In the feedlot, corn and soy are
the primary foods. But the cows may also be fed candy, chicken coop waste, and the
slaughterhouse remains of pigs and chickens (21). No human would intentionally consume the
majority of items fed to cattle. We should therefore question why we eat foods that are fed in this
way. Cattle are raised this way because its a cheap and fast way to make the cattle bigger,
producing more money from each animal.
There are some people that believe killing animals for consumption is inhumane no
matter how they are slaughtered. Most people are fine consuming beef believing it has been
raised in the proper conditions. However, in order the maximize profits, factory farms butcher as
many animals as fast as possible. The journey to the slaughterhouse is always horrible for
animals no matter how they are slaughtered due to the fact that they can hear and smell other
animals being killed. According to the article, Exposed: The Long, Cruel Road to the
Slaughterhouse by Emily Dugan, For nine days, hundreds of pigs are crammed together in the
dark, standing in their own excrement. Exhausted and hungry, they become ill, vomiting from
motion sickness and waiting for long periods without food (7). Its the same way with other
animals such as cattle, chickens, and horses. Most cattle will be crammed into two story trailers
for the journey from the farm to the feedlots. Once they get there they are kept outside in the
elements where they are fed a diet which includes fattening foods, antibiotics, and growth

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hormones. When they reach market weight they go through the stunning process. The author
Michael Pollan in his article Modern Meat explains that:
This essentially injects a metal bolt. It's about the size and length of a thick pencil
into its brain, right between the eyes, and that should render the animal brain
dead. At that point, chains will be attached to his rear legs. He will be lifted up by
the chains. The chains are attached to an overhead trolley, and then he will be
bled. Another person in another station will stick a long knife in and cut his aorta
and bleed the animal. And then he will be completely dead. (4)
Conventional farming has many flaws in the way they raise and slaughter animals. The majority
of the chickens that we eat are very young because they are fed growth hormones making them
the size of adult chickens in half the time. This allows the poultry industry to make double the
money because they dont have to wait for chickens to reach full maturity. With regards to
livestock, the stun guns that are used as part of the slaughtering process are designed for cattle
but are used on other animals rather than spending the money to redesign a new stun gun for
each category of livestock. As a result, when pigs and horses are slaughtered, the metal bolt
doesn't kill them as quickly as it does cattle. The anatomy of each type of farm animal differs so
when they stun the animal the bolt doesnt do its job and causing the animal unnecessary pain.
Chickens dont even get the curtesy of being stunned or having their necks broken because
certain laws are in place that excludes poultry from being rendered unconscious before
slaughter (Queally 7).
The way that feedlots are operated is dangerous for both the animals and the consumer.
Growth hormones play a big part in the livestocks diet. As a result, chickens grow at such a fast
pace that their young skeletal system isn't strong enough to hold up their body weight so when

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they are killed they are still very young. According to the article, California Enacts Strictest
Animal Antibiotic Law in the U.S., by John Tozzi, They are still peeping the sound of baby
chicks when they are killed - even though their bodies have ballooned to the size of giant adult
chickens (11). The result is that many hens are unable to walk and they spend their lives being
stepped on by other chickens. The growth hormones that are given to dairy cows make them
produce more milk than is reasonable. Cows are fed a diet that includes things such as chicken
house litter which has had dead chickens and waste in it. They are also fed body parts of
chickens and pigs that were not processed for meat. Feeding the cows these byproducts can cause
sickness in both people and livestock. Examples include mad cow disease and E. coli which can
potentially harm or kill people. Many people also fail to think about contamination of the meat
during the butchering process. When the livestock is first butchered the stool spilled onto the
meat will contaminate it according to Dr. Mercola in the article Conventional Ground Beef Is
Three Times More Likely To Contain Antibiotic-Resistant Fecal Bacteria Than Grass-Fed Beef
(3). Ground beef can also contain E. coli which is difficult to get rid of. In an effort to control the
bacteria, ammonia is mixed in during the grinding process. With cuts of meat any bacteria can be
cooked off the surface. Since ground beef is all mixed together, diseases cant be cooked out:
Between 2003 and 2012, there were almost 80 outbreaks of E. coli O157 due to
tainted beef, sickening 1,144 people, putting 316 in the hospital, and killing five.
Ground beef was the source of the majority of those outbreaks. And incidences of
food poisoning are vastly underreported. For every case of E coli. O157 that we
hear about, we estimate that another 26 cases actually occur (Rock 5).

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The labels that we see on packaging are often misleading for the consumer. When we go
into the grocery store we see plenty of signs that say farm fresh and all natural but what do
they really mean? For example, cage free chickens spend their entire lives inside large chicken
houses never going outside and are often kept in complete darkness. Though cage-free hens
are not confined to battery cages, they may still be packed by the thousands, into poorly
ventilated, windowless warehouses. Undercover investigations have revealed cage-free hens
commonly living indoors, packed so tightly that they can barely move or spread their wings
(Queally 9). Natural does not mean the same thing as organic, and it doesn't seem like there
would be too many differences. Organic farms still shove their cattle, by the thousands, into
feedlots where its easier to harbor dangerous pathogens (Mercola 19). Natural however does
have a different meaning, Natural or All-natural is completely meaningless and has no
bearing on whether or not the animal was raised according to organic principles. Natural meat
and poultry products can by law receive antibiotics, hormones, and genetically engineered
grains, and can be raised in CAFOs (22). Although the labeling says Natural, it does not
require that the animals be raised properly with the space to move and places to graze. It also
means that growth hormones can still be used in their diets.
We can make better choices about what we eat every time we buy animal products. Next
time you go into the grocery store, look for labels that say certified humane, which means the
animals are never in cages and actions like debeaking never happen. Certified humane is also
better for us because growth hormones are not fed to the animals. Antibiotics are only
administered by veterinarians to animals that are sick. Also, pasture raised means animals have
access to their natural habitat where they can graze on a proper diet. Antibiotic-free, No

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antibiotic residues, and No antibiotic growth hormones, are terms that have not been approved
by the USDA (21).
Whereas the inhumane processing of animals is often in the news, the conditions for
workers is often over-looked. The way that factory farm workers are treated should be against
the law because many of the employees are treated almost as bad as the animals that are
slaughtered. The conditions that they have to work in often cause them harm. For example, they
have to handle chemicals and bodily fluids which can cause infection in their hands resulting in
their nails peeling off. Employees are also pushed to their limits, Workers in the meat industry
make an average of $23,000 a year, work 10+ hours a day, are pushed so hard they often defecate
in their pants to avoid slowing down and suffer a repetitive motion injury rate 30 times the
national average stated Lucas Spangher in the article, The Overlooked Plight of Factory Farm
Workers (4). What the media shows us are people torturing animals, but what we dont see are
factory farm industries torturing people. Superiors exploit their risk of deportation and
unfamiliarity of the language to induce constant fear (5), these are the conditions that people
work under every day to support their families. They have to live in constant fear of being sent
back to their country where they might not be able to support their family. Women also get
tormented, Most women interviewed spoke of sexual harassment and assault that they suffered
at the hands of superiors (5). Not only are the animals scared but so are the employees because
they have to live in constant fear when they go to work.
The damage that factory farms do to animals and humans unfortunately isnt where the
story ends. Factory Farming also causes severe damage to the environment. Each animals waste
can add up, The highest concentration of hog farms in the US is found in Duplin County, where

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an estimated eight million hogs produce about 14 billion gallons of waste each year. On a
national level, cattle, dairy cows, hog, and poultry CAFOs produce about 300 million tons of
manure annually (Mercola 4). Also, during the slaughter process each animal must be cut open
so they can be drained. All the blood, urine, stomach acid, and other bodily waste has to go
somewhere and Smithfield, the largest pork producer in the world, decided to make a manmade
lake out of it. Several warehouse-style buildings are lined up next to a giant open air cesspool
the size of four football fields, filled with the excrement from thousands of pigs housed in the
building (2). Factories also dont have the time to properly dispose of animal waste as they
could spend money on packaging instead of the environment. Eventually the manmade lake of
waste gets full, When the cesspool of toxic waste is full, it must be emptied, and to do that, they
simply spray it across the landscape using a high-pressure hose that shoots it out like a fine mist
(5).
Consumers should avoid eating meat that comes from factory farms because of the harm
it does to the animals, humans, and the environment. They harm their animals due to the fact that
the industry sees them as inventory, rather than living creatures. These farms take advantage of
their workers and are able to get around laws that prevent people and animals from being
harmed. They hurt the environment by spraying animal waste on our earth and push animals to
the limit where they cant even stand up and fight back. You dont have to go vegan you just
need to know where to get the right product.

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Sources

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