In March of this year, I decided that I wanted to be a vegetarian. I didn't eat meat very much in the first place and I had been thinking a lot about the mistreatment of animals in the meat industry, particularly on factory farms. Factory farms are industrial operations that specialize in producing the most meat and eggs quickly and at low cost, almost always at the expense of the welfare of these animals. There are many brave men and women who go undercover into these factory farms with wires and hidden cameras in order to bring about justice for the animals. But even with enough evidence, charges can't always be brought against the farms, as laws don't always protect animals that are raised for slaughter. There are also bills popping up throughout the country referred to as "Ag-Gag" legislatures that make it harder to expose factory farms for the conditions they keep the animals in.

Although on factory farms the pigs, cows, turkeys, and chickens are being raised for milk, eggs, and meat, this doesn't mean that they can be treated like they aren't real animals. On factory farms, these animals are deprived of even the most basic of life functions like grazing, socializing, or even seeing the sun. They are further mistreated through mutilation, like tail-docking without anesthesia and debeaking, the removal of portions of beaks off of hens to prevent abnormal pecking due to the stress of their environments. Veal calves are ripped from their mothers within days of being born, causing them severe emotional and psychological distress. Their diets and movements are also extremely restricted in order to keep their meat tender. When eggs laid to produce more hens hatch with male chicks, the chicks are taken and killed by either electricity, gassing, or grinding them up while they are still alive.

Overcrowding is another cruelty these animals endure on factory farms. Pregnant sows are kept in "gestation crates", crates so small that these sows can't move at all and are trapped in their own feces. Egg-laying hens are often kept together in "battery cages", which provide space smaller than a piece of paper for each hen. Dairy cows are often confined indoors for their lives on hard, concrete floors and often connected to a milking apparatus. Turkeys are kept in groups in long sheds without sunlight and pasture, stuck in their own feces, exposing them to extremely high levels of ammonia. While this animals are trapped in these cages, they aren't able to engage in natural behaviors, like socializing. Sick and dead animals are often neglected and left among the living, which causes even more stress for the animals. These animals are also subject to genetic manipulation and are given antibiotics from birth to promote a higher amount of meat that can be harvested. Turkeys are so breast-heavy that they can no longer mate so they are constantly artificially inseminated. Cattle are fed unnatural grain diets in order to increase their weight, but these diets ravage their digestive systems, often resulting in sickness. Dairy cows are given bovine growth hormone and are bred as often as possible in order to keep milk production high.

Along with the suffering these animals endure, factory farms are also harming the environment. Over 37% of methane emissions come from factory farms. Also, animals on factory farms produce around 1 million tons of manure per day. The waste is stored in "lagoons" on farm sites and are known to leak into nearby waterways, polluting them with nitrates and drug-resistant bacteria strains and killing the animals living in them.

There is plenty of other research and articles about the cruelty against animals in factory farms and the meat industry, so I encourage you to do your research and think about the purchases you are making. Are you hamburgers or chicken nuggets worth more than the lives of these helpless animals? However, I realize not everyone would be willing to give up meat, so I also encourage you to shop locally and humanely. If enough people can change their buys or stop altogether, we can change the meat industry and help the animals that are being subjected to endless suffering.