Cows
Cows
More than 41 million cows suffer and die for the meat and dairy industries every year.
Mutilation
When they are still very young, cows are branded for identification, causing third degree burns. Since intact males tend to be more aggressive, males have their testicles ripped out of their scrotums. Their horns are ripped or burned off to prevent them from attacking each other under conditions of confinement. All of these cause extreme agony for the animals, but no pain relievers or anesthesia is used.
Cruel Living Conditions
Cows raised for beef usually spend the first year of their lives grazing. They are not adequately protected from inclement weather and many will die of dehydration or freeze to death. The cows are rounded up and shipped to an auction lot and then across hundreds of miles to massive feedlots. The feedlots are filthy feces- and mud-filled holding pens where they are crammed together. To fatten them up, the cows are fed an unnatural diet of grain and corn, which causes chronic digestive pain and metabolic disorders. Their diet may also consist of poultry litter, expired cat or dog food, and leftover restaurant food. Poultry litter, the waste from the floor of poultry barns, may contain bits of cows because regulations allow for feeding of cattle tissue to poultry. They are also pumped full of drugs and hormones to make them grow faster and to keep them alive in these deplorable conditions.
In the U.S., 90 percent of beef cows and one third of dairy cows are injected with growth hormones. These hormones have been linked to cancer and other health problems in humans.
Dairy Cows
There are 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the U.S. Most spend their miserable lives in large sheds or in feces-caked mud lots. They are repeatedly artificially impregnated and are expected to give birth to one calf per year (they have a 9 month gestation), which means they are impregnated while still lactating.
To get them to produce more milk than the amount that they would naturally, dairy cows are fed an unnatural diet and pumped full of hormones. With genetic manipulation and these intensive production technologies, it is common for dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk her day – 10 times more than they would produce naturally. To combat infections associated with these hormones, extreme overcrowding and filthy conditions, they are pumped full of antibiotics.
Calves are generally taken from their mothers within a day of being born. Males are destined for veal crates, while females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers.
Veal
Cows “raised” for veal are the male offspring of dairy cows. The calves are taken from their mothers pretty much immediately after birth and are forced into dark, tiny sheds. The sheds are small because keeping the animal completely immobilized ensures that his meat stays tender. They are fed a liquid diet (which can include cow blood) low in iron and, as a result, are severely anemic. This anemia gives their flesh its desirable light color. Veal calves are slaughtered after only a few months of life. Every time you eat a piece of cheese or drink a glass of milk, you are drinking the milk that should have gone to these calves. You are responsible for their torture.
Transport & Slaughter
The cows are rounded up and packed into trucks where they go without food for the duration of the journey, which can take days. They are transported in all kinds of weather and have no protection from the elements. In extreme heat, many collapse and in intense cold, many freeze to the sides of the trucks and workers have to pry them off with crowbars. Cows that are too sick or injured to walk off the truck, “downers,” may have ropes or chains tied around their legs and drug off the trucks. Hundreds of thousands of cows each year arrive to the slaughterhouse in this condition.
After being unloaded, cows are forced through a shoot and shot in the head with a bolt gun meant to stun them. A standard beef slaughterhouse kills 250 cattle every hour and with this many animals, it is impossible to ensure that they are adequately stunned, which means many are still fully conscious when they are strung upside down by their hind legs. Their throat is slashed and they are hacked to pieces, all while some are still fully conscious.
