Factory farming is the exploitation of animals such as chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, and many others for the sole purpose of creating food for humans. These animals are kept in small and unlivable environments for their very short lives. Most people like to believe that the meat they eat on a daily basis doesn’t come from a factory farm, but the sad truth is that 99% of farm animals are raised this way.
When I picture animals on a farm, I like to think of them roaming free in fields––cows grazing on grass, pigs rolling in mud, and chickens running around with no boundaries. This is what most of us imagine farms to be like because at one point in time, farms were like this. Today, large corporations own most farms. When you go to the supermarket to purchase meat, there are a variety of brands to choose from. Take beef for example. Some people prefer to buy beef from companies who claim that they treat their animals better than other brands, but the truth is there are four main companies that make up 80% of the beef industry in the United States. Chances are your expensive beef came from the same place as the store-brand beef next to it.
If the thought of supporting questionable and often unethical farming practices doesn’t bother you, maybe knowing those factory farms are also causing harm to human health and the environment will. Most factory farms are not well-maintained, if at all. They provide a breeding ground for a host of bacteria, including E. coli and salmonella, which can be transferred to humans through meat, eggs, and dairy products. To prevent this from happening, farmers load up the animals with high doses of antibiotics. This works for the most part, but it contaminates the meat intended for human consumption. There’s always the possibility of a super bug or a drug-resistant strain of bacteria to evolve and infect these animals, which would render them useless and could potentially provide a path to the infection of humans. Since the point of factory farms is to mass-produce meat and dairy products, there is yet to be a quick solution to get rid of the animal waste. Animal waste runoff has lead to air, water, and land pollution. This video shows what happens with some of this animal runoff. Unfortunately, bacteria from these large cesspools seeps into the ground and sometimes causes ground water contamination. If there are plants in the ground nearby one of these cesspools, say a field where spinach is being grown, there’s the potential that those spinach plants could be contaminated with bacteria from this cesspool, such as E. coli (sound familiar?) Here’s an article from Mayo Clinic that talks about the causes of E. coli (see number 3).
This has also caused health issues for people who live near these factory farms. The video talks about how in large cesspools, the animal waste is not treated. The animal waste is sprayed into the air where it becomes a mist, which people eventually end up inhaling. I don’t know about you, but to me the thought of inhaling cow feces is repulsive. According to this article, experts say that the overcrowding of pigs on factory farms and the storage of their waste in cesspools most likely caused the H1N1 virus. I knew several people who contracted the H1N1 virus, and they were miserably sick. It's amazing to think that if we took better care of these animals, we could prevent illnesses like the Swine Flu.
If I have not changed your perception of factory farms, talking about the life of a chicken that is used for its eggs on a factory farm will be my last attempt. Chickens are one of the most abused farm animals, if not the most abused. In 2007, 280 million hens lay 77.3 billion eggs in order to reach consumer demands (Farm Sanctuary, 2016). Male chicks are useless for the factory farmers since they cannot lay eggs, so they are tortured to death by either being electrocuted, ground up while still alive, or gassed. When female chicks are very young, their beaks are cut off with a hot blade. Farmers de-beak the chicks to prevent them from pulling their feathers out, which chickens will do when they’re under extreme stress, like when they’re placed in a confined battery cage (2016). Battery cages hold 5 to 10 hens at a time, and each chicken is given an 11-inch-by-7-inch area of floor space. The cages are made of wire, which gives the hens cuts and bruises when they rub against the sides and stand on the wire (2016). Battery cages are where hens spend most of, if not their entire lives.
One may think that chicken beaks are like human fingernails, where we can’t feel it when we cut them, but that is far from the truth. De-beaking a chick can lead to chronic pain that they will deal with for the rest of their lives. Hens are artificially induced to mass produce eggs. A way to force hens into an egg-laying cycle before they’re ready is by starving them for up to two weeks, which in turn will shock their bodies into another laying cycle. A hundred years ago, a normal hen would lay 100 eggs annually. Currently, hens lay 250 eggs annually. The typical lifespan of a hen on a factory farm would be 5-8 years, but once farmers notice a decline in egg production, typically after 1 or 2 years, they send those chickens to be slaughtered (2016).
To those of you who I have upset with my article, I'm sorry. I got all of my facts from Farm Sanctuary and ASPCA, and the other articles and video linked above. If you’re interested in learning more about factory farms, I recommend the movies "Earthlings," "Food Inc.," and "Cowspiracy," or you can talk to me because I can talk about this for hours.
