Not Your Childhood Image
by lauren Ornelas, vivausa.org
When I saw what life is really like for pigs
on today’s farms, I was left feeling physically sick
for days. I suppose I knew they lived on concrete, indoors
in factory farms. However, I was not prepared for the intensity
of their confinement, and the awful reality of their boredom.
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| Photos courtesy of Viva! USA; click on images for larger views. |
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In the gestation shed, I heard a constant clanging noise.
It was the sows hitting their heads against their cage doors
as if trying to escape. After a while, some would give up
and lie down, while others again took up their futile action.
I saw the pens where pigs are fattened up for slaughter—essentially concrete cells, each holding about a dozen pigs (left). In one pen, there was a pig missing an ear. Another had a rupture the size of a grapefruit protruding from his stomach (right). A dead pig was constantly nudged and licked by others (below, right). The stench in these places is overwhelming.
At the larger farms I visited in North Carolina, there were thousands of pigs housed in sheds. Many were dead (above) or dying—one actually died right in front of me as I videotaped. Dead pigs had been left in the pens with the living; other pigs had been tossed in the aisles—barely alive, unable to reach food or water.
For more on this investigation, see When Pigs Cry: A Report on the USA Pig Industry.
Emery’s Rescue
by Christine Morrissey, EastBayAnimalAdvocates.org
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Emery, before (above) and after (below) being rescued from the farm. |
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During EBAA’s investigation, 39 sick and injured chickens were rescued, including Yosemite (below, left). Photos courtesy of East Bay Animal Advocates. |
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Emery was destined to become one of the many chicken breast fillets advertised as “all natural” at the local supermarket. However, in a string of luck, this plump rooster made an unusual detour from the normal life of a bird raised for meat.
During the summer of 2005, rescuers with East Bay Animal Advocates discovered the disabled four-week-old chicken at a factory farm. Leaving the California Central Valley behind, Emery relocated to the Bay Area. This night changed his life.
A “poster chicken” of the broiler industry, Emery has a crippling case of splay leg—a limb deformity common among broilers. Factory farmed chickens suffering from splay leg often struggle to gain access to food and water and are denied veterinary care.
Click here for more on this investigation.
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“Contrary to what one may hear from the industry, chickens are not mindless, simple automata but are complex behaviorally, do quite well in learning, show a rich social organization, and have a diverse repertoire of calls. Anyone who has kept barnyard chickens also recognizes their significant differences in personality.”
Bernard E. Rollin, PhD, Farm Animal Welfare, Iowa State University Press, 2003
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More about Chickens Raised for Meat
Like turkeys, broiler chickens are confined inside sheds with tens of thousands of other birds. Forced to live on waste-soaked litter, the birds commonly suffer burns on their feet and bodies.5
Today’s broilers have been bred to reach market weight in six weeks—twice as fast as their 1940s counterparts.9 This rapid growth rate has brought an increasing incidence of diseases that cause suffering, such as ascites and painful skeletal deformities.8 To avoid problems of reproduction and lameness associated with obesity, broilers used for breeding are severely feed restricted.5
Environmental Destruction
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