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Meet Your Meat
Pigs, cows and chickens are individuals with feelings - they experience love, happiness, loneliness and fear, just as dogs, cats and people do. They're made of flesh and blood, have complex social and psychological lives and feel pain just as humans do. More than 900 million mammals and birds and billions of fish are killed for food each year, and they're raised and killed in ways that would horrify any compassionate person. In his or her lifetime, the average British meat-eater is responsible for the abuse and death of more than 1,800 animals. |
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What they don't tell you - about egg labelling
Labels on egg boxes are purposefully confusing. 'Farm fresh' means they were laid in the battery system; 'barn eggs' usually come from hens crammed into barns with no fresh air or daylight; even 'Freedom Foods' doesn't mean that those eggs are free-range. Often 'free-range' hens are confined to barns with 'pop holes' through which only dominant hens can access the outdoors. Regardless of their living conditions, all are slaughtered in just two years. |
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But fish aren't like dogs or cats are they?
Fish are our fellow citizens with scales and fins ... I would never eat anyone I know personally. I wouldn't deliberately eat a grouper any more than I'd eat a cocker spaniel. They're so good natured, so curious. You know, fish are sensitive, they have personalities, they hurt when they're wounded. Sylvia Earle, PhD, former chief scientist US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
Down on the Dairy Farm
Those happy-looking cows munching grass out in the fields would tell a different story if they could speak. In order to produce milk, cows must be impregnated, but selective breeding means they now produce six to 12 times the amount of milk their calf can drink. Their udders are swollen and sore from the excess and can become infected with mastitis, which happens to about one-third of dairy cows in the EU. Artificially inseminated while still producing milk for their calf, they can become painfully thin, and within 24 hours of giving birth, mother and calf are once again separated - a traumatic event for both. Female calves may be added to the dairy herd while males are sometimes considered useless and are shot within days of birth. As the mother's body wanes though over-use, she is killed when she's between 4 and 7 years old.Rhani's Story: The true story of a calf rescued from the jaws of death
Rhani was a baby calf just 8 days old. Workers were kicking and beating her and loudly cursing her as they hauled her onto the slaughterer's lorry at the Sevenoaks Market in Kent. She was to be slaughtered the next day. Marion Eastwood stood watching. After the workers got Rhani into the truck and walked away, Marion went over to it. Rhani was lying there with her eyes squeezed shut as if to shut out the horror of what was happening to her.Even though just the week before, Marion had bought another 8-day-old calf named Rosie, she couldn't bear to walk away from the baby animal lying in the truck with her eyes shut. She asked the slaughterer how much he would charge for Rhani. He said £13.50, which she paid him. The little calf was so terrified that she kept her eyes shut all through being removed from the slaughterer's truck and loaded into the back of Marion's car. Marion knew she could be breaking all sorts of regulations by transporting Rhani in her car, but she was desperate to get the little animal away as soon as possible. Rhani was in shock and didn't move a muscle.
When Marion got to her home, Friend Animal Sanctuary, the traumatised baby calf, eyes still tightly shut, had to be carried all the way up to the paddock. There, Rosie stood waiting. Rosie mooed to Rhani, and with that, Rhani opened her eyes. She saw Rosie and the paddock and an orchard and acres of land. She struggled to her feet and wobbled straight over to Rosie. They licked each other and then walked off together.
At first, Rhani would not suckle a bottle, and she became weak. But after much coaxing and stroking of Rhani's fur, Marion finally got her to take the bottle. She bottle-fed both Rhani and Rosie for several months, and they grew bigger and stronger. Rhani was also put on a course of homoeopathy to help her through the shock of her ordeal.
Today, Rhani is friends with all the sheep, goats, chickens and pigs at the sanctuary. She is very sweet and often can be found trying to get into Marion's house, putting her head inside the window to be near her rescuer and sometimes to steal bananas, which she loves. Rhani is very inquisitive and has gotten into trouble several times when she has broken into the neighbour's vegetable patch, but no one gets mad at her, because she's so sweet and gentle. A very sociable cow who loves to be included, Rhani frequently comes over to stand behind volunteers at the sanctuary as they work. She is very nosy and afraid of nothing.
Almost any time someone builds a fire, Rhani and Rosie can be found next to it, enjoying its warmth. She also likes vehicles - perhaps she remembers that being put into a car saved her life. If you leave a car door open, she tries to get in, even though she's much too big. Once, she managed to get her front end into Marion's car, and Marion thought she was going to have to call the fire brigade to get her out. Luckily, Rhani backed out when she was good and ready to.
Rhani is a beautiful cow now and so gentle and friendly that everyone at Friend Animal Sanctuary loves cuddling up to her.
What Happens to Beef Cattle
The traditional way of grazing beef cattle is in the open, although they may be wintered indoors. At about 1 year old, calves can be moved into crowded sheds and fed a high-protein diet to ensure rapid growth. Cattle must be fed antibiotics to keep them alive through the stressful conditions they're forced to endure and are in a chronic state of low-grade illness. In fattening sheds, the animals are often kept on concrete, resulting in serious leg problems. Most cattle undergo painful mutilations, such as castration and de-horning (their horns are chemically burnt off).What Happens to Chickens?
The majority of 'broiler chickens' and 'laying hens' live in vast warehouses where lighting and ventilation are controlled by machines and where a system failure means widespread death. To increase profits, farmers drug and genetically manipulate chickens; as a result, most birds suffer from painful, crippling bone disorders or spinal defects.
Chickens are inquisitive and interesting animals who are thought to be as intelligent as cats, dogs and even primates. When in their natural surroundings - away from factory farms - they form friendships and social hierarchies, recognise one another and develop pecking orders, love and care for their young, and enjoy a full life that includes dust-bathing, making nests, roosting in trees and more.
What Happens to Pigs?
More than 90 per cent of piglets are reared in overcrowded, often filthy factory-farm conditions. Lack of exercise causes pigs to become so weak that they can barely walk. They typically suffer skeletal problems and diseases of the legs and feet. Pneumonia, meningitis and dysentery are commonplace. Treated like breeding machines, they are artificially inseminated and forced to churn out five litters of piglets every two years. They are moved to farrowing crates to give birth in a barren stall with a metal contraption which separates mother from young, allowing only the necessary feeding and not giving enough room for the mother to nuzzle her babies. After just three to four weeks, the piglets are taken from their mothers and fattened up for bacon, ham or pork. Because they get frustrated in their barren surroundings, they bite each others' tails, which causes serious wounds. To prevent this, their tails are cut off or their teeth crushed with pliers, or both, usually without anaesthetic.
The Cruellest of Deaths
Slaughtering in the UK is poorly governed and plagued by animal abuse. 'Murder She Wrote: The Life and Death of Farmed Animals', offered by Viva!, catalogues the abuse with scientific precision. Cattle are frequently ineffectively stunned. Abattoir vet Gabriele Meurer explains, 'Not many animals stand still. They are all upset, some very frightened, and some move violently. The animals are never given time to calm down. Sometimes the slaughterman misses, wounding the animal terribly, instead of stunning him or her.' Pigs are routinely conscious through the entire slaughter process. Says Meurer, 'The slaughtermen are in such a hurry that they often don't put the electric tongs in the correct position on the pigs' heads. The pigs get half or insufficiently stunned, wake up while they bleed and are obviously still alive and conscious when they are plunged into the boiling water. Sheep are stunned just as badly.' And chickens and turkeys have it the worst of all, as they are hung upside down by their already crippled legs and routinely regain consciousness (or never lose consciousness, because of ineffective stunning) while their necks are bleeding out, thus entering the scalding tank for feather removal still conscious.How About Fish?
Like other animals, fish feel pain and experience fear. Dr Donald Broom, animal welfare advisor to the British government, said, 'Anatomically, physiologically and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals.' When dragged from the ocean depths, fish undergo excruciating decompression - often the intense internal pressure ruptures their swimbladders, pops out their eyes and pushes their stomachs through their mouths. Then they're tossed onboard, where many slowly suffocate or are crushed to death. Others are still alive when their throats and bellies are cut open. |