Chicken Overcrowding
On a factory-farm, up to five hens my be crowded into a cage with floor space hardly larger than your computer monitor, for their entire lifetime.
Veal
The beef industry ensures that consumers are not informed of the reason for veal?s light color and tender texture. It is like this because veal calves are force-fed an iron-deficient, anemia producing diet devoid of solid foods. They are also prevented from moving around in a natural fashion.
Water Pollution
Animal agriculture is a major contributor to the pollution of the earth?s water sources, both fresh and salt. Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers used to grow feed for animals are contaminating our water supplies, in addition to the fecal waste that is produced by the animals themselves. This waste is then washed into our streams, rivers, lakes, and bays. We have less clean water, and the creatures that live in water become contaminated or are killed off by the pollution as well.
Unnatural Environment
Many animals that are raised in a factory-farm never see a blade of grass in their lifetime!
Natural Animal Behaviors
Animals raised for food production are nearly always deprived of natural sexual, social, hygienic, and parental behaviors.
Fossil Fuel Consumption
Animal production requires a lot of fossil fuels. Fuels are needed to transport animal feed, to heat their housing, and to take the animals to slaughter. Also, meat packing plants, and grocery stores burn these fuels. The burning of fossil fuels, an well as the methane produced by the animals, is one cause of global warming.
Inhumane Slaughter
The animal slaughtering process is inhumane. When the animals are stunned before they are slaughtered it is not always reliable and the animals are often in pain as they move towards their death.
Bull Castration
Bulls raised for meat-production are routinely castrated without any type of anesthesia or pain-killers.
Animal Lovers Unite
The average North American will eat 1100 animals in his or her lifetime. By reducing or eliminating meat in your diet, you can save and deliver from abuse hundreds of animals.
Useless Male Chicks
In the egg industry, male chicks are considered useless and are often thrown into a grinding machine - alive!
Desertification
Desertification is the slow death of the land caused by the overgrazing of cattle. The topsoil erodes and the land dries out, preventing it from supporting the growth of plant life.