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ANIMAL
PROTECTION
INSTITUTE
Animal Factories
Every year billions of animals are raised and killed for human consumption. In the U.S. alone, more than 10
billion land animals are slaughtered annually. (Billions more fish are raised and killed in fish "farms" or are
taken from oceans, rivers, and lakes.)
Like all animals, farmed animals have the ability to experience pleasure and pain. Unfortunately, farmed
animals endure tremendous amount of pain and suffering for unnecessary human use and consumption.
API works to increase public awareness about the plight of farmed animals, encourages legislation aimed at
protecting farmed animals, and promotes a plant-based diet. One of our most powerful tools in the fight
against the abuse of farmed animals is our Going Veggie guide, designed to help people make simple, daily
food choices that can save animals, halt the destruction of the environment, and improve their health.
Currently, few legal protections exist for farmed animals. The federal Animal Welfare Act does not apply to
animals used in agriculture and many states have enacted laws that specifically exempt farmed animals
from portions of state anti-cruelty statues. The Humane Slaughter Act requires that all animals slaughtered
in federally inspected meat processing plants to be rendered unconscious to the process of slaughter.
However, this law is poorly enforced and does not cover chickens and turkeys nor does it cover kosher,
ritual, or home slaughter.
The only other federal law that addresses welfare of animals raised for food or food production is the "28
hour law," which generally requires that livestock being transported across state lines be humanely unloaded
into pens for food, water, and at least 5 hours of rest every 28 hours. The efficacy of this law is questionable,
however; because there is some question as to whether it applies to transportation in large trucks as
opposed to rail, and because most farmed animals in the U.S. are transported by truck, the law is rarely if
ever enforced. Moreover, 28-hour time limit is woefully inadequate to protect the welfare of transported
farmed animals and lags far behind international initiatives that call for time limits of between 8 and 12
hours.
Unlike family farms of the past, most animals used in agriculture today are part of high-production factory
farms that treat animals as little more than machines.
In factory farms, animal suffering exists on an almost unimaginable scale. Thousands of animals are
confining in extremely small spaces to maximize production. They are subjected to painful mutilations such
as debeaking, toe removal, dehorning, and castration, without benefit of pain relief. They are denied the
ability to engage in natural behaviors. They frequently die during transport in overcrowded trucks. Once
arriving at the slaughterhouse, they may have their throats cut or be boiled alive while still conscious.
Here's a look at how some animals are treated as they are turned into food and other products for human
use:
Cattle
More than 40 million cattle and calves are slaughtered annually in the United States. Some beef cattle are
raised on the range while others are raised in crowded feed lots.
Whether raised on the range or on the feed lot, when large enough, cattle are crammed into metal trucks
and taken to slaughter. On the way to the slaughterhouse, cattle may travel for hours in sweltering
temperatures with no access to water.
Animals who become debilitated and unable to stand due to broken legs or illness are called "downers" by
the meat industry. Downer animals are electrically prodded, dragged with chains, or left to die without food
or water.
Pigs
In the United States more than 120 million pigs are slaughtered for human consumption each year.
Factory-farmed pigs are raised in crowded pens enclosed inside of huge barns. The air in these structures is
filled with eye and lung-burning ammonia created from the waste collected below the floors.
Breeding sows spend their lives in metal crates so small that they cannot even turn around. Devoid of
adequate space and freedom of movement, these sows often develop stereotypic behavior — repetitive
movements that serves no practical purpose and that indicate psychological distress — such as head
bobbing and rail biting.
At the slaughterhouse pigs are stunned (often inadequately) and hung upside down. Their throats are then
cut, and they are bled to death. If workers fail to kill a pig with the knife, that pig is carried on the conveyer
belt to the next station, the scalding tank, where he or she may be boiled alive.
Poultry
Every year more than 9.8 billion chickens, turkeys, and ducks are raised and slaughtered for human
consumption in the United States. Most of these animals are chickens.
Crowded and unable to express natural behavior, chickens often excessively peck each other. Instead of
providing adequate space for the chickens, farmers have them "debeaked" — cutting off the sensitive top
portion of the beak with a mechanical blade, with no anesthesia).
Chickens raised to become meat have been genetically altered to grow abnormally large. As a result, many
broiler chickens' bones are unable to support the weight of their muscle tissue, causing them to hobble in
pain or become totally crippled.
At the slaughterhouse, chickens are hung upside down by the feet and attached to a moving rail while still
conscious. The birds missed by the mechanical neck-slicing blade and boiled alive are called "redskins" by
the industry.
Egg-Laying Chickens
Almost all of the more than 400 million egg-laying hens in the United States are confined to "battery" cages
— tiny prisons roughly 16 by 18 inches wide. Five or six birds are crammed into each cage, and the cages
are stacked in tall tiers. The overcrowding causes serious injury, or even death.
Hens are forced to produce 10 times the amount of eggs that they would produce naturally. When egg
production slows down, farmers use "forced molting" to shock the hens into losing their feathers and
prematurely starting a new laying cycle. This "forced molting" includes starving and denying water to the
hens for several days during which many hens die. To keep hens from pecking each other, farmers
"debeak" the hens. Debeaking is a painful procedure whereby the hen's sensitive upper beak is sliced off
with a hot blade. Male chicks — by-products of laying hen production — are thrown into plastic bags to
slowly suffocate or are ground into animal feed while still alive.
To learn more about how chickens are treated in egg production, see our article, "Cracking the Egg Habit."
Dairy Cows
About half of the 10 million dairy cows in the United States are kept in some type of confinement system.
Dairy cows are forced to produce 10-20 times the amount of milk they would naturally need to suckle their
calves. This intensive production of milk is extremely stressful. As a result, dairy cattle "burn out" at a much
younger age than their normal life span and as many as one-third suffer painful udder infections.
In order to continue to produce milk, a cow must have a calf each year. Calves would normally stay with
their mothers for a year or more. However, on the dairy farm, calves are immediately removed from their
mothers so that the milk can be sold for human consumption. Calves are sold to the beef or veal industry, or
become replacements for "burned out" dairy cows.
To learn more about how cows and calves are treated in food production, see The Destructive Dairy
Industry.
Other Farmed Animals
Other animals are used in agriculture in large numbers.
Sheep are raised for both food and fiber. About 3 million were slaughtered to make meat in the U.S. in 2004.
Sheep also suffer enormously in the wool industry. Lambs may have their tails chopped off and be castrated
without anesthetic. In Australia (from where 80 percent of all wool comes) ranchers perform an operation
called "mulesing," where large strips of skin are carved off the backs of animals' legs. This procedure is
performed to produce scarred skin that won't harbor fly larvae, so that the rancher can spend less time
caring for the sheep. The shearing of sheep at most wool ranches can be a brutal procedure, as workers are
encouraged to shear as quickly as possible. As a result, an estimated one million Australian sheep die every
year from exposure. Sheep who are no longer useful for their wool are sent to crowded feedlots and then
transported to the slaughterhouse.
Goats also increasingly exploited in the U.S. to produce milk, meat, and fiber. More than 2 million goats are
currently used in meat and milk production, and more than 600,000 goats were slaughtered in 2004.
The PMU (Pregnant Mare Urine) industry confines pregnant mares to stalls for seven months out of every
year to produce urine to be used for the manufacture of an estrogen replacement therapy called Premarin.
When the mares are no longer needed, they, along with the majority of foals they produce every year, go to
slaughter.
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Ten Fast Facts about Farmed Animal Transport in the United States
Ten Fast Facts about Farmed Animals
Facts About the Poultry Industry
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