What the heck is a “farm factory?”
Well, here is what we know:
Factory farming is an attitude that regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited for profit. In animal agriculture, this attitude has led to institutionalized animal cruelty, massive environmental destruction and resource depletion, and animal and human health risks.
Chickens running around the barnyard and farm in their “chicken-ness” laying eggs contentedly … the highest from of health for any living thing.
Nope … now we have “factory-contented chickens” laying eggs the likes of which we ought to appreciate what it cost to get laid.
There are more than 325 million egg laying hens in the U.S. confined in battery cages — small wire cages stacked in tiers and lined up in rows inside huge warehouses.
In accordance with the USDA's recommendation to give each hen four inches of 'feeder space,' hens are commonly packed four to a cage measuring just 16 inches wide.
In this tiny space, the birds cannot stretch their wings or legs, and they cannot fulfill normal behavioral patterns or social needs.
Constantly rubbing against the wire cages, they suffer from severe feather loss, and their bodies are covered with bruises and abrasions.
Is this what free-market capitalism stands for? If not why do we support these outfits by purchasing the eggs they’ve obtained through torture?
How about a little bacon with them there eggs?
Modern breeding sows are treated like piglet-making machines.
Living a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth, each sow has more than 20 piglets per year.
Gosh, when America goes to war and needs more military bodies maybe them sabre rattlers and corporate trough-suckers could figure out factory birthing for our patriotic mothers and sperm-donors.
After being impregnated, the sows are confined in gestation crates – small metal pens just 2 feet wide that prevent sows from turning around or even lying down comfortably.
At the end of their four-month pregnancies, they are transferred to similarly cramped farrowing crates to give birth. With barely enough room to stand up and lie down and no straw or other type of bedding to speak of, many suffer from sores on their shoulders and knees.
When asked about this, one pork industry representative wrote, "…straw is very expensive and there certainly would not be a supply of straw in the country to supply all the farrowing pens in the U.S."
Right! No self-respecting corporate trough-sucker would want to waste money on straw for God’s sake.
Got milk?
Traditional small dairies, located primarily in the Northeast and Midwest, are going out of business.
They are being replaced by intensive 'dry lot' dairies, which are typically located in the Southwest U.S.
Regardless of where they live, however, all dairy cows must give birth in order to begin producing milk.
Today, dairy cows are forced to have a calf every year.
Like human beings, cows have a nine-month gestation period, and so giving birth every twelve months is physically demanding.
The cows are also artificially re-impregnated while they are still lactating from their previous birthing, so their bodies are still producing milk during seven months of their nine-month pregnancy.
With genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it is common for modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day — ten times more than they would produce naturally.
As a result, the cows' bodies are under constant stress, and they are at risk for numerous health problems.
Not to mention the moral problems of a society that sustains this kind of dominion over God’s creation.
When’s the last time you heard a sermon on this extremely vile form of human evil against what God has created.
Remember what God told Peter when he looked into the dream sheet?
Yeah yeah, Arthur. So where’s the beef?
Since the 1980s a series of mergers and acquisitions has resulted in concentrating over 80% of the 35 million beef cattle slaughtered annually in the U.S. into the hands of four huge corporations.
Accustomed to roaming unimpeded and unconstrained, range cattle are frightened and confused when humans come to round them up.
Terrified animals are often injured, some so severely that they become "downed" (unable to walk or even stand). These downed animals commonly suffer for days without receiving food, water or veterinary care, and many die of neglect.
Others are dragged, beaten, and pushed with tractors on their way to slaughter.
… Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots, crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden holding pens.
The air is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals are at a constant risk for respiratory disease.
Feedlot cattle are routinely implanted with growth-promoting hormones, and they are fed unnaturally rich diets designed to fatten them quickly and profitably.
Because cattle are biologically suited to eat a grass-based, high fiber diet, their concentrated feedlot rations contribute to metabolic disorders.
That’s what I (as well as you) agree to every time I buy raw or cooked beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and whatever else is factory farmed.
We have an addiction quite hard to abandon as long as we are able to put awareness out of our minds.
“You want fries with that burger that was dead before the cow died – or died while the cow was still on its feet?”
Can you see Mr. John Wayne as a modern American cattleman in a contemporary version of the old western movies in which he was an all-American hero?
I know, I know.
We can’t be bothered with these kinds of moral considerations when there are more important moral issues facing our country:
… abortion (where we tear our garments and consider ourselves heroic because we sanctify at least one form of life)
LGBT … what some have called the single greatest threat to America.
Socialism … where pursuit of profits might have to suffer a bit in deference to the common good and pursuits of other than
money.
We are all guilty of this kind of blind long-term indifference.
At some point one of us ought to wake up … don’t ya think?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.