nbcrusader said:
What part of a hamburger is torture?
In the U.S., more than 41 million of these sensitive animals suffer and die for the meat and dairy industries every year.1 When they are still very young, cows are burned with hot irons (branding), their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), and their horns are cut or burned off—all without painkillers. Once they have grown big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy feedlots to be fattened for slaughter or to dairy farms, where they will be repeatedly impregnated and separated from their calves until their bodies give out and they are sent to die.
Cattle raised for beef are usually born in one state, fattened in another, and slaughtered in yet another. They are transported hundreds of miles in all weather extremes to the slaughterhouse. Many cows die on the way to slaughter, and those who survive are shot in the head with a bolt gun, hung up by their legs, and taken onto the killing floor, where their throats are cut and they are skinned. Some cows remain fully conscious throughout the entire process—according to one slaughterhouse worker, in an interview with the Washington Post, “they die piece by piece.”
Cattle raised for their flesh spend the first year of their lives grazing. In fact, they are the only farmed animals other than sheep who are ever allowed to do anything natural, like breathe fresh air or feel sun on their backs.
However, cattle are still subjected to abuses that would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if they were dogs or cats. To mark cows for identification, ranchers restrain the animals and push hot fire irons into their flesh, causing third degree burns, as they bellow in pain and attempt to escape. Male calves’ testicles are ripped from their scrotums without pain relievers, and the horns of cows raised for beef are cut or burned off.
While “on the range,” most cows receive inadequate veterinary care, and as a result, many die from infection and injury. Every winter, cattle freeze to death in states like Montana, Nebraska, and North Dakota. And every summer, cows collapse from heat stroke in states like Texas and Arizona. After about a year of facing the elements, cows are shipped to an auction lot and then across hundreds of miles to massive feedlots—feces- and mud-filled holding pens where they are crammed together by the thousands. Many arrive crippled or dead from the journey.
Cattle on feedlots are fed a very unnatural diet to fatten them up. This diet causes chronic digestive pain—imagine your worst case of gastritis never going away—and some of their innards actually become ulcerated and eventually rupture (the industry calls this condition “bloat”). According to a study published in the Journal of Animal Science, this diet also causes potentially fatal liver abscesses in as many as 32 percent of cattle raised for beef.2
The feedlot air is saturated with ammonia, methane, and other noxious chemicals, which build up from the huge amounts of manure, and the cows are forced to inhale these gasses constantly. These fumes can give the cows chronic respiratory problems, making breathing painful.
Cattle raised for food are also pumped full of drugs to make them grow faster and keep them alive in these miserable conditions. Instead of taking sick cattle to see a veterinarian, many feedlot owners simply give the animals even higher doses of human-grade antibiotics in an attempt to keep them alive long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse.
). There are other things in the world that concern me a lot more.
