How Are Animals Are Treated In A Factory Farm?

Animals are treated like unfeeling commodities on factory farms, instead of the sensitive, emotional, and intelligent individual beings they truly are. CAFOs are geared towards maximizing profits above all else, which comes at a steep cost—in the form of animals’ lives. Each animal raised, confined, and abused in a factory farm has no say in what happens in their lives or to their bodies.

 

Individual animals raised for their meat are often slaughtered within just months of being born. The majority of steaks, bacon, and chicken breasts that wind up on consumer’s plates come from animals young enough to be considered children, or even babies. For them and those who are kept alive longer, life is reduced to an ongoing, excruciating series of emotional and physical assaults. Generally, it is the female animals who live more than a year on factory farms, since their bodies are used to produce subsequent generations of animals for human consumption. Dairy cows are forcibly impregnated at just one year old—and every subsequent year—until they are about four or five, at which point their bodies are so worn out that they are considered “spent” by the industry and sent for slaughter. Across the board, female farmed animals have their offspring torn away from them, often within just days, or minutes, of their babies’ births. Through selective breeding, the bodies of egg-laying hens become unnaturally distorted, producing eggs at unnatural and harmful rates, causing a host of debilitating, chronic health conditions.

 

Within this broken system, the interests and preferences of innocent animals are suppressed entirely. Cages and barns are often filthy and frequently without any windows. Legions of animals are born into relative darkness, never to feel the sun on their skin.