|
Exploitation of Animals Around The World
More than 7 billion animals die yearly for human consumption. That is the extent to which animals are exploited, just used as food for humans. The following facts shed more light on the exploitation of animals that are bred just for meat consumption.
-
Chickens are raised in crowded, unnatural enviroments. There are usually 3,000 or more in one pen. The birds are not able to move about freely or even spread their wings due to the over crowding. They use "nests" made out of metal and they are bred by unnatural means.
-
In order for hens to lay mass amounts of eggs, artificial light is on 17 hours a day. Each hen averages about 300 eggs per year. Once a hen's egg prodution declines they are slaughtered. Most hens live an average of 5 to 6 years.
-
Veal calfs are raised in cages on an anaemic diet. The cages are so small that the calves cannot stand or even move in order to clean themselves. The veal calves are kept in the dark most of their lives within the cages. They are subjected to a cruel and horrid death.
-
Animals are used every day, mainly against their will to perform jobs for long hours so that a human does not have to do it. Animals are exploited in many ways around the world, such as drug testing, cosmetic testing, performing (such as those used in circuses) and used for manual labour.
They are given no choice as they cannot give any consent and with regards to being tested on and having to perform, they are mistreated, used and abused and in the end are just killed.
Animals are being used by humans for entertainment, testing on and for eating. This is unethical and is speciesism, treating animals in a bad and cruel way and using them just because humans think that animals are inferior to them and thus they can do whatever they want with them. This is wrong! Animals are a different species from humans but are still equal, which does not give humans the right to take advantage of them.
Exploitation of Dairy Cows
The truth is that cows suffer terribly in todays farming. Cow's milk is produced for her calf to feed her baby so that she or he grows into a strong, healthy cow or bull, it was never made to feed human babies or adults. A cow's natural life expectancy is 20 years, but most do not live beyond four. Naturally a cow would produce less than 1000 litres of milk a year but because of today's intensive dairy farming, they deliver between 6000-12000 litres. To achieve this they are milked all year round, even when pregnant. Dairy cows often experience metabolic diseases because they cannot take in enough nutrition to meet the demands of the milking machine, which brings them to the brink of physical collapse.
Cows are commonly articifically inseminated with semen from one of the large beef breeds to make a more valuable calf for the farmer, this obviously causes distress to the birthing cow and also may neccessitate caesarean births which weaken and shorten their lives. A cow has to calve every year to produce milk, but her calf will be taken away shortly after birth and fed on alternative milk feed, which of course, due to the cow's maternal instinct, causes her much distress, and also distresses her calf. Cows are only milked twice a day by the milking machine, obviously her calf would suckle on and off all day, they suffer painful mastitis due to the amount of milk that they have to produce and also the amount of accumulated milk causes great pain. Cows sometimes kick their own udders because they are in so much pain and sometimes the ligaments of the udder collapse and the cow will be useless for milking and she will then be taken to the abattoir and killed.
Dairy farming produces a lot of calves as a side effect of milk production. 42% end up as beef at 18 months old, some are sent off a few days old to be reared as veal. The meat industry and the dairy industry are inseparable and as much as 80% of beef comes from dairy farms. The calves destined to become beef have the best natural lives, they may be kept on grass and roam freely, although some are fed concentrates to accelerate their growth and are kept on concrete, and they may be castrated and dehorned, both of these operations are highly stressful and painful, the animals do not like being handled and are often castrated without anaesthetic, the dehorning operation is often done in batches and either the anaesthetic has worn off for most of the cattle, or it has been noticed by vets that some farmers do not wish to pay for the anaesthetic, they see this as an unneccessary expense. According to vets this operation is akin to having to having your fingers sawn off or having your whole hand sawn off.
 
The Cruelty of Veal
Originally veal was the meat of an unweaned 1 or 2 day old calf, because they had not eaten grass or exercised their meat was unusually pale and tender and expensive because there was not much meat on the baby calf. The procedure now is an industry. Calves are taken from their mothers at a day old, they are kept in pens so small that they can barely move, sometimes in complete darkness. The calves are not allowed no solid food and only milk substitutes, deficient in iron, to produce anaemia, to keep the meat pale. A malnourished calf is the whole point of the veal industry. The calves are not even allowed straw to lay on, in case they eat it. They are so desperate for roughage that they chew on wood and eat their own coats, they are in deep distress. After this they suffer further distress by being transported in over crowded conditions for up to 28 hours, for most of this time they are not allowed to eat or drink. These calves are terror stricken, they have no idea what is happening to them.
The Cruel Farming of Chickens
Chickens are reared in intensive conditions, more so than any farm animal. Although there are free range eggs now readily available for sale, many chickens still live in wire cages, in cramped conditions. Birds that are kept in very crowded conditions develop very destructive behavioural traits. They often have their beaks painfully severed to prevent them from pecking themselves or each other and this occurs because they are not able to live a natural life and fulfil their natural urges and basically they go mad. The wire cages that imprison the birds cause sores on their claws and even weld the claws or flesh to the wire mesh because of the number of birds that are held together, they will be lucky if they are near food or water. Bullying and stress are common. Free range chickens do not fare much better, they are often crammed into sheds in tens of thousands. A small group of dominant and aggressive hens can prevent the other hens from getting to the outside world. Chickens for eating are called broilers, they are kept in sheds in tens of thousands and when fully grown they have the same amount of space as a battery hen. Obviously these over crowded conditions accelerate disease and stress-induced behaviours.
Pig Farming
Pigs are as smart as clever dogs and like most intelligent animals are very playful. The sow leaves her stall only for mating or giving birth to her piglets. She may have to live on concrete and have no space to move around. The farm worker would snap off the piglet's eye teeth and cut off the tails and castrate the males without anaesthetic when the animals were a few days old. Where pigs are kept in cramped conditions, pneumonia is rife, leg injuries and arthritis are common as are aggressive biting due to the intensive farming and breeding of these animals.
Sheep Farming
Sheep are the least intensively reared farm animals. They do have a relatively natural life but they often die through exposure, neglect or starvation. Sheep are very susceptible to skin infections because of their woolly coats and to skin irritations because of the sheep dips used to halt the spread of disease. Sheep are not considered to be of great financial value to the farmer and therefore many of their poor health conditions, often relating to hoof problems, due to the wet grass and heavy rainfall affecting their environment may be overlooked and neglected.
|
Exploitation of Animals Around the World
