Over 90% of the 56 billion land animals slaughtered worldwide every year live in unimaginably cruel conditions—they are crammed together in filthy barns, their bodies are mutilated, and they never see the light of day. These “factory farms” are a far cry from the picturesque vision of farms that often come to mind where animals, people, and the land live in harmony. Instead, factory farms are industrialized farms that put efficiency and mass production over animal welfare, workers’ rights, the environment, and consumer health. When animals reach market weight or lose their economic value they are shipped from factory farms to slaughterhouses where they often experience more abuse before their death. 450 billion animals are currently living in factory farm conditions in just the US alone.

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History of Factory Farms

Table of Contents

Types of Factory Farm Cruelty

Legal Protections of Farm Animals

Environmental Impact of Factory Farms

Factory Farm Companies to Boycott

More Humane Alternatives to Factory Farming

Types of Factory Farm Cruelty

Confined to cages
- Many farmed animals (e.g. egg-laying hens, veal and pigs) are confined to small, uncomfortable indoor cages all their life never seeing the outside, living on concrete floors, being attacked by other stressed animals, living in waste, and often never having enough room to even turn around.
Body mutilations without anesthesia
- Animals have part of their beaks, tails, and horns cut off, they are branded with hot irons or ear notches, and their testicles are removed. It is common practice to perform these mutilations without anesthesia. The industry performs these mutilations to identify animals, prevent injuries from animals exhibiting stress and boredom from overcrowded conditions or natural behaviors, and for better tasting meat.
Physical abuse by overworked and under trained farm handlers
- Factory farms often overwork and under train their farm workers causing abuses from limbs being ripped off, violently jamming animals into overcrowded transport crates; running over live animals with forklifts; and hitting, kicking, and throwing animals.
Not always unconscious during butchering
- According to the Humane Slaughter Act of 1978 farm animals in the US must be stun unconscious by shooting a bolt in the head, electrocution, or gas, before slaughtering the animal. Although USDA slaughter houses have improved over the last few decades there are occasional animals that get slaughter (throat cut, hung upside down, boiled, defeathered, etc) alive. Chickens and other farm birds are not covered under this act and are usually slaughtered without being stunned.
Lacking protection from extreme weather, especially during transportation
- Farm animals are usually transported to slaughter houses in tractor trailers with no protection from heat or cold sometimes up to 20-30 hours being exposed to extreme temperatures. Transportation never stops regardless of weather. Millions of animals die from exposure in route each year.
Babes removed from mothers day of birth
- Calves, who normally would feed from their mothers for at least 9 months, are removed from their mothers within 24 hours of birth causing tremendous stress for the mother who will be impregnated within 2-3 months of birth again and again, forcing the mother cow through horrible emotional and physical pain for 3-5 years until the mother is finally slaughtered.
Over milking and over artificial impregnation of dairy animals
- Female cows are artificially inseminate shortly after their first birthdays and are often re-impregnated 2-3 months after birth over and over again until their milk production decreases or they experience reproductive programs or other illnesses, usually 3-5 years of age. Cows have a natural lifespan of about 20 years and can produce milk for 8-9 years. Factory farm cows are milked so frequently the cows often develop milking related illnesses such as Mastitis, which is a painful inflammation of the mammary gland, easily avoided by using cleaner housing, more space, and better diets but instead the cows are just shipped to slaughter early when they get Mastitis or other illness due to factory farm conditions.
High cases of infections, diseases and poor health, resulting in overuse of antibiotics
- Living conditions in factory farms are so horrible for animals they are constantly sick and usually kept alive on a steady flow of antibiotics, which not only prolongs animal suffering, it also increases the rick of antibiotic resistant pathogens from forming.
Unhealthy growth due to growth hormones and concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO)
- in order to fatten animals up or increase milk production as much as possible factory farms often use growth hormones such as rBGH, which has been outlawed in the European Union and many other countries besides the US, due to its harmful effects on animal health (increases risk of Mastitis and other illnesses) and humans health (links to cancers and other illnesses).
Trauma
- Animals experience fear, pain, stress, depression, and trauma very similar to how humans would experience these emotions. Due to the above factory farm conditions most factory farm animals are in a constant state of trauma their whole lives.

Chicken Culling

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Legal Protections of Farm Animals

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Information Referenced From Animal Legal Defense Fund

Environmental Impact of Factory Farms

Photo credit from Cowspiracy

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Click on link to learn more

Environmental Injustice/Racism

In North Carolina there are estimated 10 million pigs in the farming industry creating waste equivalent to 100 million humans. There are no septic systems for these farms. They are stored in giant lagoons that are periodically emptied by spraying the sewage over fields. These lagoons often pollute groundwater and the sprays often drift to nearby poor minority communities. Nearby residents complain that it’s literally raining hog waste when the sprays hit the right wind. People living near these lagoons experience horrible smells daily and health problems such as asthma, diarrhea, eye irritation, depression, blood pressure increases, neurological issues, lung issues, cancer and other health problems. The local residents are left with little recourse.

According to a 2017 Observer article:

“An analysis conducted by WaterKeeper Alliance found that out of 2,246 pig concentrated animal feeding operations in the state, only 12 have been required to obtain permits under the Clean Water Act. The rest operate under lax state permit guidelines. A 2014 study conducted by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that black people are 1.54 times more likely to reside near these hog operations in North Carolina than white people, Hispanics are 1.39 times more likely, and Native Americans are 2.18 times more likely.”

Observer: Feces From Hog Farming Is Poisoning Black Communities in North Carolina

NY Times: North Carolina’s Noxious Pig Farms

Invisible Vegan

The Invisible Vegan is a 90-minute independent documentary that explores the problem of unhealthy dietary patterns in the African-American community, foregrounding the health and wellness possibilities enabled by plant-based vegan diets and lifestyle choices. Over the past three decades, obesity, coronary heart disease, and diabetes have steadily grown as the leading causes of health problems in America, disproportionately impacting the African-American community in particular. This documentary offers both historical and contemporary perspectives on the dietary trends among African-Americans, showing how intertwined histories of slavery, twentieth-century socioeconomic inequalities, and the rise of Big Food, have led to the increased consumption and dependence on meat, processed, junk, and fast food.

Learn More about Factory Farming

Overview of Factory Farming (info about chickens, pigs, cattle, turkey)
Additional Factory Farming components
Industries with Animal Cruelty Connections
- Boycott Canadian Seafood to Help Baby Seals (for Chefs, restaurants, and businesses)
- Boycott Palm Oil to Help Orangutans

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Factory Farm Companies to Boycott

Tysons Food Products

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Fast Food Involved in Animal Cruelty to Boycott

Higher Animal Welfare Alternatives to Factory Farming

Although the majority of animal agriculture in the US and the world is factory farming there is a growing movement today of farms with higher animal welfare, leaving behind the horrors of factory farming and returning to better animal welfare standards which can include but not limited to:

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Reference the links below for more information about the following:

These farms achieve various different levels of animal welfare standards and when possible should be researched. And ultimately the only 100% humane situation is to live as much as possible on a plant-diet (resources to live on a plant-based diet).

But if you’re not ready to live entirely on plants, these growing humane farms, no matter where they are at on the animal welfare spectrum, are a huge improvements in animal welfare and environmental impacts over factory farming. And the more consumers buy into higher animal welfare farms and create a demand for high animal welfare products, the larger the humane industry will grow, making higher animal welfare meat and dairy products more accessible and with better animal welfare standards.