Farming in a Factory: Confined Until the Kill

Farming in a Factory: Confined Until the Kill

Claustrophobia, malnutrition, and abuse.  Not many think about the cow that their McDouble started out as and the journey it took to end up between those two buns when they visit their local drive thru.  “Over 50 billion food animals are raised and slaughtered every year” (Imhoff, 2010) in America.  Factory farming yields most meat-products across the United States.  Large numbers of animals are contained in small areas to be fattened and eventually slaughtered.  The abuse continues to be seen in the corn based feed the animals receive which provide no nutritional value to the animals that we are eventually going to consume.  These poorly fed, cramped animals have evolved to “fit” this “lifestyle.”

  Farmers have created entire new breeds of animals to produce efficiently and with less financial cost.  Slaughterhouses nationwide are facilitators of animal cruelty through confinement in high volumes, the production of non-nutritional feed, and the creation of new breeds for profit.

This image displayed the living conditions for cows in factory farms.  The confined spaces prevent the cows from moving.  The lack of movement creates tender meat and skin which is preferred by consumers.  Source: http://d22r54gnmuhwmk.cloudfront.net/photos/1/sh/yg/UBsHYGYtnABuhgf-556x313-noPad.jpg

A form of faming called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) raises mass amounts of animals in confined areas.  Such industries are often criticized for their treatment of the livestock.  Supervisors overlook the abuse they witness, focussing more on profit and production than the comfort of their animals.  In these supposed farms, “...animals are crammed by the thousands or ten thousands, often unable to breathe fresh air, see the light of day, walk outside, peck at a plants or insects, scratch the earth, or eat a blade of grass.”  Forcing large numbers of animals to live in over-capacitated conditions is unhealthy and unsanitary for America’s future chicken nuggets.  Unfortunately for factory owners, animals are not meant to live in such conditions.  Evolution has taken place over time developing entire new breeds of animals to suit these circumstances.

High levels of steroids and antibiotics are found in a lot of animal feed.  Statistics show that livestock take in, “70% of the antibiotics in the United States.”  The use of these chemicals is to create tender muscle and to protect the animals from disease.  These chemicals do protect the animals, but also have side effects.  Generations of chemically enhanced cows have led to today’s milk cows with larger utters.  This is beneficial to farmers trying to get every bit of milk they can from their cattle, but also takes negative effect on the cow’s hormones.  Cow’s utilize different hormones to produce milk and maintain their utters; factory farm cows often contract infections on these oversized utters, providing the consumer with chemically educed milk rather than the farm-fresh milk they think they are purchasing.  Several other modified breeds seen in factory farms include broiler chickens, bred for larger breast and thigh meat, layer hens, which are left in the sun for extensive hours to enhance greater egg production, veal calves, cooped up to create tender skin and muscle, and pigs, crowded until they are unable to move to produce supple meat.  Many other animals have been enhanced to keep up with production lines in factory farms as well.  By changing the feed given to their livestock, companies can fatten their animals cheaply.

Thirty-two percent of the corn grown in the United States is used to feed livestock.  This is fairly alarming, especially considering the non-existent nutritional value found in corn product.  In the film King Corn (2007), it is mentioned that, “corn has replaced grass as the principal feed for cattle.”  This unsettling information shows how farms with livestock are more concerned with the financial gain than the production of healthy, tasteful meat for their customers.  The goal of each meal given to the animals in factories is to force gain weight.  In short, the faster the animals gain weight, the quicker they are sold for profit.  The Bledsoe Cattle Company in Wray, Colorado keeps their cattle for a total of one hundred-forty days, merely fattening its cows with corn and grains to be turned over as fed animals.  Seven thousand acres of corn are grown each year to feed the livestock on this farm

 (see Appendix A).  Companies working for financial gain, sacrifice the health of their livestock and consumers in the process.

Animal cruelty in factory farming is not only harmful for the animals, but for the country as a whole.  Where the animals face the physical downfall of factory farming, consumers eat the remains of this torture.  On the next visit to McDonald’s, consider the nutritional benefits in your burger.  The comedy of this task is that there is almost no nutritional value to the beef they serve.  Farmer’s themselves admit to the hamburgers seen in fast food restaurants truly being, “fat disguised as meat.”  Unless there is an intervention in the methods of farming seen today, obesity rates in America will continue to climb.  Slaughterhouses put their focus on financial gain rather than the value of their product.  Confined livestock fattened with corn product has led to new breeds.  So long as America demands cheap food, factory farming will continue.

References

CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories (2010). Retrieved from http://www.cafothebook.org

Factory farming facts. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.idausa.org/facts/factoryfarmfacts.html

Woolf, A. (Director). (2007). King corn [DVD]. United States: Mosaic Films.

Appendix A

This image give a visual to the feed presented to animals on factory farms.  It is made greatly of different grains and corn, these are combined with chemically pellets full of the “nutritional” aspect as opposed to the “filling” aspect.  Source: http://www.continentalrollomixer.com/_images/industries-animal_feeds.jpg

This chart shows the amount of “add-ins” that are fed to livestock raised to be slaughtered.  This diet promotes weight gain, but does not provide nutritional value to product that will eventually be served to people.  Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHYZNPWoARX1TWrYjU2IFnb4tPkMzmJES9PFnfH9-zEjaP80ifA5SgJQbcrgf5wi8ViU4e-y7CR7UqoxtqP1yiV4HTv4bCkD050PwfP8Z8J6q4gmRTWMN0Gn7Nfv0Pj47lwtDeus_dnct/s400/corn_consumption.gif