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If someone were to treat any other animal the way they treat animals in factory farms they would be charged with animal cruelty. The conditions are deplorable and the animals are frequently abused. Here are some videos that show just how cruel factory farms are. Warning, the videos are very graphic.
I could show you footage of some one kicking a dog; Does this mean all dog owners are cruel? This is just propaganda pushed by ignorant people, not what really happens.
Physical abuse of animals at factory farms is very common. If you search YouTube for "factory farming" you'll get over 90,000 hits. Many of those are videos of animal abuse at factory farms all over the country, so it's not just a handful of cases, but for the sake of argument let's assume that no factory farm workers beat the animals. That still doesn't change the fact that the conditions the animals are living in are inhumane. Did you see the sizes of those cages the pigs were in? They live on cement floors and can't even turn around. If a person were to lock their dog in a cage that small for their whole life they would be charged with animal cruelty.
The treatment of chickens is revolting. All the male baby chicks are either thrown into a grinder, asphyxiated, or have their necks snapped, and they're the lucky ones. The ones that aren't killed as babies have their beaks cut off, which many scientists say causes "acute pain and distress with possible chronic pain." Then they are crammed into tiny cages with a bunch of other chickens. The cages are so small they can barely move, and most of them never see sunlight. To keep them laying eggs they force them to molt by starving them for 7 to 14 days causing them to lose all their feathers.
The conditions that other factory farm animals live in aren't much better, but I won't bother going into detail on those because you can just Google it if you're really interested. If someone treated their pet the way factory farm animals are treated, I'm pretty sure most people would label them as cruel and inhumane, and rightfully so.
Have you ever been to a "factory farm"? I have been to many of these farms doing subcontract work and they are as humane as schools are for kids, work environments for employees, etc. Schools don't have padded seats and so they must be inhumane. Factories don't let people sit down and so they must be inhumane. Only a half hour for lunch, don't get me started.
I suggest you first grasp how the world is before you deem cruelty as being feed and housed. Before you Google something and take the word of 90,000 on lookers, I suggest you find out the facts first. Do some critical thinking for a change. Typical atheist attitude; If on-line it must be true, I saw it on Google.
The difference is the students and workers get to go home at the end of the day. The animals are locked up in those uncomfortable conditions for life.
Do you honestly think it's humane to lock an animal in a cage so small that it can't move, forcing it to live in its own urine and feces? If so, I hope you don't have any pets or kids.
Before you Google something and take the word of 90,000 on lookers, I suggest you find out the facts first.
And where do you suggest I get those facts? It's not like factory farms are giving tours to the public, so I did the next best things, I found videos showing the living conditions of animals in factory farms. I guess you think those videos were all faked by animal rights organizations, that they built a fake factory farm, filled it full of animals, and beat them just to make the real factory farms look bad.
It's not like factory farmers deny that the animals are kept in small cages and subjected to the treatment I mentioned in my last response.
Typical atheist attitude; If on-line it must be true, I saw it on Google.
Typical Thewayitis attitude; If on-line it must be true, unless it doesn't agree with me, then I'll just hurl out insults and hope no one notices how hypocritical I'm being.
The difference is the students and workers get to go home at the end of the day. The animals are locked up in those uncomfortable conditions for life.
Do the animals get to lay down and sleep most of the day? Sounds like the animals have it really rough.
Do you honestly think it's humane to lock an animal in a cage so small that it can't move, forcing it to live in its own urine and feces?
Again you show how little you know, they don't lay in their urine or feces. The floors are slotted or perforated under the animals and there is a scraper system under them which pulls the sewage to a drainage system. This drainage system leads to a lagoon which is then pumped out and spread on fields. The pens are hosed out frequently which does two things. First it helps keeps disease/illness out of the confinement building and secondly it aids in flushing the drainage system out to help keep it from plugging. These places also have large exhaust fans to remove ammonia from the buildings.
I guess you think those videos were all faked by animal rights organizations..
I do guess that they were not taken by employees doing their job and improving conditions or else they wouldn't have had time to take them.
Do you really believe that a facilities with 6500 or more animals wants to create a disease infested environment? It would be real profitable if the animals died. Do you know that you have to shower in and out of these places? They do this to keep sickness from getting in or out of these farms.
“Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.” ~~ Benjamin Franklin
"Please note that I included facts, not opinion.
By the way I found this link through the USDA (United States Deptment of Agriculture) web-site. I would call this about as fact as fact can get.
It is unnecessary. We don't need to eat meat, simple as. Some people just like to. So how is it fair? It is completely unnatural and easily comparable to the worse concentration camps, and far crueler than the gulag.
I have been to a farm, and to a slaughter house. They are not humane, and the people who run them know that, which is why they don't like to let too many visitors through. In schools, kids don't have their vocal cords cut out, and at the end of the day, employees don't have their throats slit. It's not the same. In addition, the parts of the animals that can't be sold are ground up and fed back to the other animals, turning them into cannibals. And what is wrong with being an atheist? I don't see how that is at all relevant to this debate?
They kinda are. That's all I got. After doing a debate on animal testing I couldn't care less. I'm only on this side because it says "Are they cruel?", not "Are they useful"
Exactly! One cow will feed approximately 533 people one meal. Beef cows are usually slaughtered when they are somewhere between 3 to 5 years old, and eat an average of 39000 lbs of food in that time span. A cow has about 400 lbs of usable meat. That means it takes 39000 pounds of food to produce just 400 pounds of food, which will only feed 533 people one meal. Just think of how many people could have been fed with 39000 pounds of food if those farms were used to produce crops for people.
I don't know where you pulled these figures from, but by there inaccuracies I'm guessing the air. The feed to gain ratio is between 7 & 10 lbs of feed to 1 lb of gain. Based on this and the average market weight of a steer is 1000 lbs, this would be at the most 10,000 lbs of feed.
Need to go to this web-site; This explains in more detail.
Using your figures at current grain & cattle prices at the Chicago Board of Trade
Corn $5.12 per bushel 55 pounds in one bushel 39,000/55= 709 bushels
709 bushels x $5.12 = $3630.08
Cattle $126.03 per hundred pounds
Steers are sold at 1000 to 1200 pounds for slaughter
$126.03 x (1100/100) = $1,386.33
Get the picture? According to you it cost $3630.08 to feed an animal that sells for $1,386.33 Why again is there factory farms with a negative income? Do the Math.
After doing some more searching I've found such a huge range of figures that it's hard to tell what the real numbers are, but the writer of the article you linked to seemed to know what they were talking about, so I'm willing to go with those figures. Regardless of the exact figures, the core of my argument still stands. The amount of food we get out of factory farms is far less than the food that is put into them. It's a waste and is cruel.
There is also the fact that a lot of the food that is used to feed livestock is not usable for human consumption. Corn gluten, grass, bone meal, etc. are used to fatten livestock. If these products are not used when feeding livestock; What should we then do with them? Dump them in land fills? These products farther reduce the cost of feeding livestock and help free the world of trash. I thought green thinking was in?
Corn Gluten: Corn gluten has other uses; It's an effective plant food for lawns and gardens, and is also good at controlling weeds. It's the "green" alternative to chemical fertilizers and weed killers. It's also biodegradable, so not an issue.
Grass: Why would we have to dispose of grass? Letting grass grow is part of "green thinking." It's also biodegradable.
Bone Meal: The primary source of bone meal is factory farms.
1790 Total population: 3,929,214; farmers 90% of labor force (This means 90% of the population was basically living off what was produced and selling the extra)
1990 Total population: 261,423,000; farm population: 2,987,552; farmers 2.6% of labor force (This means 2.6% of the population is basically feeding themselves and the rest is living off what is produced)
Tell me what other method of producing what you stuff in your face we are supposed to use? Necessary. Is surviving cruel?
I quote, as I probably couldn't put it better, and I'm lazy: One cow will feed approximately 533 people one meal. Beef cows are usually slaughtered when they are somewhere between 3 to 5 years old, and eat an average of 39000 lbs of food in that time span. A cow has about 400 lbs of usable meat. That means it takes 39000 pounds of food to produce just 400 pounds of food, which will only feed 533 people one meal. Just think of how many people could have been fed with 39000 pounds of food if those farms were used to produce crops for people.
And the protein argument, we don't need meat. There are plenty of other natural soures of vital vits/mins we usually get through meat consumption.
A thing? Are you seriously stupid? Either you're one of those city idiots who doesn't even know what a herdwick is, or you're the same brand as white supremacists.
Well I was brought up between a farm 'in the middle of nowhere' and a semi-urban area. I never thought of animals as objects and I learned to respect them. I actually did learn a lot about how different species communicate and show their emotions. One of my best friends is actually a horse.
It's not humerous. It's a fact, and if it's so difficult for you to understand maybe you should research a little. Throuought history, humans have had strong bonds with animals, especially horses and dogs. Some animals were even worshipped, and some still are, i.e. cows in India.
The cost of many foods are already unbearable. If we eliminate the farms, we make it harder to get access to these meats. I know there is an argument that we do not need meat however, is it really within our rights to force the general population to turn vegetation?
