Farms are lagers that prevent animals to satisfy their primary and fundamentals biological needs. Animals are kept in such small stalls that they cannot even turn around. This is done on purpose because moving would mean spending energies instead of putting on weight, and also it would increase the room needed for each animal making the farm bigger and more expensive. Their suffering is irrelevant because the only thing that counts is the economic profit the breeder can get from their meat, and they are considered just as goods.

The calves don’t even have some straw to lie down: it would make the cleanings difficult, and in case the calves would eat the straw their meat would be less tender and less appreciated by the demanding consumers.

Pigs get a special treatment: as piglets they are castrated without anaesthesia because otherwise the taste of their meat would be too strong for the delicate lovers of ham. Then the tail is cut and the tooth filed: the stress provoked by factory farming drive the animals crazy inducing aggressive psychotic behaviours, and without these measures the pigs would hurt each other.

The same happens with the poultry: hens and chickens get their beak cut to prevent being hit to death from the other stressed animals.

Then they get crammed in one on top of the other in tiny crates: on the room of a newspaper page have to live four adult animals, and when the average productivity of the crate decreases they get sent to the slaughterhouse.

Milk cows are also reared in small spaces and get slaughtered when their productivity goes below the threshold decided by the breeder.

​Millions of animals are transported in shameful conditions to be slaughtered in the destination country. The journeys are toilsome.

The animals are crammed in trucks driving for hundreds of kilometres, most of the times without even stopping to let them drink or eat. They are exposed to the heat in summer and to the freezing cold of winter nights. Many animals die during the transport and are not removed until the journey is finished, so that dead bodies and alive terrified animals stay for hours side by side.

There are some laws which limit the duration of the trips and somehow regulate the transport conditions, not making them bearable in any case. Many animalists have demonstrated that most of the times this regulation are completely ignored with the total indifference of the authorities.

This way the grieving show of animals getting to destination in agony, or dead for the thirst, cold or hunger never stops.

The very last step of an animal’s life. The shortest, and the most cruel as well. From a “life” made of chronic sufferings in the farm, to the indescribable pain in the “dismantling chains” of the slaughterhouse. Each butcher has to kill hundreds of animals every day, and the boredom an attention lacks due to a repetitive mechanical job cause mistakes and more pain for the animals.

Before the cattle bleed to death by cutting in their jugular, they get stunned with a gunshot in their head, making them unconscious. But this stunning method doesn’t often work and the animals get split up while still alive and in consciousness.

Pigs get stunned with electric shocks before being slaughtered, but they sometimes come round during the first steps of slaughtering.

Poultry get stunned with electric shocks too, then dipped in boiling water pools to get rid of the feathers and finally decapitated. Also for them the stunning methods don’t always work.

Male chicks are totally useless for egg farms, so they get mashed alive with specific machines, or they simply get stifled in special gas chambers.

GO VEG!

It’s tempting to want to believe that the meat we eat is ethical, that our ‘food animals’ have lived full, happy lives and that they have experienced no pain or fear at the slaughterhouse. Yet the sad truth is that all living creatures (even those labelled ‘free range’ or ‘organic’) fear death, just as we do. No matter how they are treated when alive, they all experience the same fear when it comes to slaughter.

Every time we shop or order food in a restaurant – every time we eat – we can choose to help these animals. Every time we make the switch from an animal product to a vegan one we are standing up for farmed animals everywhere. Going vegan is easier than ever before with veganism becoming increasingly mainstream as more and more people from all walks of life discover the benefits of living this way. It’s time to ask ourselves: if it is now possible to live a life that involves delicious food and drink, delivers better health, leaves a smaller carbon footprint and avoids killing other creatures – then why don’t we?