AnimalVox

Factory Farms
Many people believe that animals raised for food must be treated well because sick or dead animals would be of no use to agribusiness. This is not true.
The competition to produce inexpensive meat, eggs, and dairy products has led animal agribusiness to treat animals as objects and commodities. The worldwide trend is to replace small family farms with factory farmslarge warehouses where animals are confined in crowded cages or pens or in restrictive stalls.
Bernard Rollin, PhD, explains that it is more economically efficient to put a greater number of birds into each cage, accepting lower productivity per bird but greater productivity per cageindividual animals may produce, for example gain weight, in part because they are immobile, yet suffer because of the inability to moveChickens are cheap, cages are expensive.
Transport
Crammed together, animals must stand in their own excrement while exposed to extreme weather in open trucks, sometimes freezing to the trailer. These conditions can result in downersanimals too sick or weak to walk, even when shocked with electric prods or beaten. Downers are dragged by chains to slaughter or to dead piles where they are left to die.
Like this bull I had last yearthis bull was one of the biggest bulls Ive ever seen. It was at the very front of the trailer. And the spirit it had, he was just trying his hardest to get off the trailer. He had been prodded to death by three or four driversbut his back legs, his hips have given out. And so basically they just keep prodding it. So it took about 45 minutes to get it from the front nose of the trailer to the back ramp.
Then from there it was chained with its front legs, and it fell off the ramp, smashed onto the floor, which I dont know how many feet that would be but quite a racketI just said, Why dont you shoot the damn thing? Whats going on? What about this Code of Ethics?
This one guy said, I never shoot. Why would I shoot a cow that can come off and theres still good meat there? When I first started, I talked to another trucker about downers. He said, You may as well not get upset. Its been going on for many years. It will go on for the rest of my life and your life. So just calm down about it. It happens. Youll get kind of bitter like I did. You just dont think about the animals. You just think that they arent feeling or whatever.
interview with a Canadian livestock trucker
Slaughterhouses
Animals in slaughterhouses can smell, hear, and often see the slaughter of those before them. As the animals struggle, the human workers, who are pressured to keep the lines moving quickly, often react with impatience towards the animals.
Common mammal stunning methods:
Captive bolt stunning A pistol is set against the animals head and a metal rod is thrust into the brain.Shooting a struggling animal is difficult, and the rod often misses its mark.
Electric stunning Current produces a grand mal seizure; then the throat is cut. According to industry consultant Temple Grandin, PhD, Insufficient amperage can cause an animal to be paralyzed without losing sensibility.
Ritual slaughter Animals are fully conscious when their carotid arteries are cut. This is supposed to cause unconsciousness within seconds, but because of blood flow through the vertebral arteries in the back of the neck, some animals can remain conscious as they bleed for up to a minute.18 Additionally, Temple Grandin, PhD notes Unfortunately, there are some plants which use cruel methods of restraint such as hanging live animals upside down.19 This can cause broken bones as the heavy animal hangs by a chain attached to one leg.