overview
In the United States, more than 99 percent
of the animals raised for meat, dairy,
and eggs 1 are raised on factory farms. 2
These factory farms are confined, intensive, and controlled operations where animals rarely
see the outdoors, and are unable to live out any of their natural behaviors: pigs raised on
concrete can’t root in the earth with their noses, chickens can’t bathe in the dust, and
cattle are fed unnatural diets of grain that cause painful liver ulcers. 3 They are often kept
under constant stress, undergo painful physical alterations without anesthesia or other
forms of pain relief, and are given steady doses of antibiotics to compensate for unsanitary
conditions. 4
Billions of farm animals are slaughtered each year in the US. 5 And even though 94 percent of
the population believes that animals deserve to live free from abuse and cruelty, the laws do
little to protect farm animals. Outside of the regulations for USDA Organic animals, federal
laws only cover the transportation and actual slaughter of animals, not how they live, and
even then these laws exclude birds, which make up over 98 percent of land animals raised
and slaughtered. 6
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