Contents Introduction

The competition to produce inexpensive meat, eggs, and dairy products has led animal agribusiness to treat animals as objects and commodities. The worldwide trend is to replace small family farms with factory farms large warehouses where animals are confined in crowded cages or restrictive pens.

If the anti-cruelty laws that protect pets were applied to farmed animals, many of the most routine U.S. farming practices would be illegal in all 50 states.

For modern animal agriculture, the less the consumer knows about whats happening before the meat hits the plate, the better. If true, is this an ethical situation? Should we be reluctant to let people know what really goes on, because were not really proud of it and concerned that it might turn them to vegetarianism?

Peter Cheeke, PhD | Oregon State U. Professor of Animal Agriculture | Contemporary Issues in Animal Agriculture (2004) textbook

According to Professor Bernard E. Rollin: [I]ndividual animals may produce, for example, gain weight, in part because they are immobile, yet suffer because of the inability to move. In the case of battery-cage egg production, Rollin explains that though each hen is less productive when crowded, the operation as a whole makes more money with a high stocking density: chickens are cheap, cages are expensive.

In an article in favor of cutting the space per pig from 8 to 6 square feet, industry journal National Hog Farmer advises that Crowding pigs pays.

It is all very well to say that individuals must wrestle with their consciences but only if their consciences are awake and informed. Industrial society, alas, hides animals suffering. Few people would themselves keep a hen in a shoebox for her egg-laying life; but practically everyone will eat smartly packaged, farm fresh eggs from battery hensmilk drinkers do not see the calves torn from their mothers.

The Economist, What Humans Owe to Animals, 8/19/95

In the United States, virtually all birds raised for food are factory farmed. Inside the densely populated sheds, vast amounts of waste accumulate. The resulting ammonia levels commonly cause painful burns to the birds skin, eyes, and respiratory tracts.

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Vegan Outreach - Factory Farms