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Inhumane
Treatment of Farm Animals
Sierra
club @2008
On traditional
family farms, cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens are almost part of
the family. Chances are that each animal has a name, And when
the animal is taken to slaughter, farm families try to make sure
that the processing is done humanely, causing the animals as
little stress and suffering as possible. The chickens that
provide eggs and the cows that furnish milk, cream and butter
live long and productive lives.
Farm animals are
turned out in pastures, with access to shelter during inclement
weather. Humane treatment of animals is based on understanding
of their natural behavior. When farm animals are treated with
respect, nature itself is respected. Farmers call this "good
husbandry".
There is a direct
connection between respect for natural animal behavior and
protection of the environment. Animal husbandry practices that
accommodate the natural ways of animals tend to be much more in
tune with sustainable and non-polluting farm practices.
Today, industrial
style animal raising ignores animal nature and welfare by
standardizing the animals raised to eliminate natural genetic
diversity, by speeding up animal production through genetic
manipulation and the use of chemical and drug additives to feed,
and by concentrating production in giant confinement barns that
crowd animals together in inhumane conditions ripe for disease.
In turn, more drug inputs are needed to keep them alive. These
facilities are actually animal factories. The water and air
pollution associated with animal factories stems directly from
the reducing of animals to units of industrial production.
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Millions of
broiler chickens are housed in industrial barns containing
up to 25,000 birds. Birds are bred to have such heavy
breasts that many are unable to stand, and die of thirst
because they are unable to reach water;
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Thousands of
dairy cows are confined in concrete encased feedlots. To
artificially boost milk production, cows are often injected
with hormones that cause crippling loss of bone mass and
produce painful infections. Animals are milked by mechanical
devices as many as three times each day. The farmer/animal
connection ceases to exist in these massive industrial dairy
factories;
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Hogs are
confined by the thousands in industrial barns which force
them to spend their lives in tight metal pens, often
standing painfully on slated concrete floors, breathing
almost poisonous levels of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide from
the manure stored under their pens. Hogs are sentient,
social creatures that can be debilitated by stress when
deprived of outlets for their nature behavior. Antibiotics
and other artificial inputs are given, in part, to overcome
the physical symptoms of this stress.
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Egg laying hens
are confined by the millions in giant industrial barns,
living in tight metal cages, called "battery cages" stacked
one atop another. Hens are forced to artificially molt (lose
their feathers) through systematic starvation.
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Huge beef
feedlots in western Kansas, Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma
Panhandle, and eastern Colorado confine thousands of steers
and heifers and feed them hormones and antibiotics to
promote faster growth.
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The Humane
Slaughter Act, passed in 1960 by the US Congress, has no
provisions for awarding fines or penalties, is generally not
enforced by the US Department of Agriculture, and is
routinely ignored.
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