1000 Flowers for the Planet - #147 Illegalise Factory Farming

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #147 Illegalise Factory Farming

Pigs (sows) are kept in cages, called sow stalls, that are barely the size of the animal, so they cannot even turn around. They are then continually impregnated to bear litters until they can do so no more, then killed. Pigs produced for meat on a factory farm spend their whole lives indoors. Piglets are removed from their mothers prematurely, causing stress, have their teeth clipped causing up to 15 days of extreme pain, and the males are castrated without any pain relief. Pigs farmed in this manner can suffer depression and related illnesses because they never see the light of day, are kept in cages with concrete floors and only get to feel the great outdoors on the way to the slaughterhouse.

Hens kept for egg production live their entire lives in cages approximately the size of an A4 sheet of paper. They cannot turn around or stretch their wings. The base of the cage is tilted at an angle to make the egg roll down to one end for collection. They never see the light of day and are kept in an artificial light which is turned off and on in order to create a shorter night and day, tricking the hens into laying more eggs than they naturally would. Once they are about 21 months old and their egg production slows, they are slaughtered. Hens are capable of living up to 10 years in natural conditions.

Cattle spend up to a year in feedlots where they are grain fed before being slaughtered. This means they are crowded into confined areas, sometimes on concrete, where they remain in their own refuse until they die.

Researching for this Flower is extremely draining. I haven’t looked at what happens to sheep, and need to ask you to research for yourself, open your eyes to the practices out there, which are a response to the high demands of so many people on this planet for massive amounts of meat, milk and dairy products at the lowest prices possible. This comes at the expense of the well-being of all the animals we eat. But we’re not prepared to pay the true value of the food we eat – we let the animals pay the price.

Educate yourself! Start with these websites and check out what’s happening in your own country.

https://www.voiceless.org.au

http://www.makeitpossible.com

http://www.unleashed.org.au