Factory Farming.

Personally, I love a nice boiled egg and soldiers, or bacon butty in the morning. I like fried eggs and chips, or a nice juicy steak, for my tea. I can tell the difference between an animal or animal product which has been free to roam outside and been fed healthily, as opposed to one that hasn’t seen light in weeks. Not only the price of free-range is different, the quality is much better, too.

Behind the scenes of bright, lush fields and sun dappled skies that we are told are the environments out animals graze in, animals are forced into dark, squalid conditions that we would not give to the worst of our own species, humans. Words which describe this filth are intensive farming, industrialised farming, and factory farming. Living quarters that if given to prisoners and captives would spark indignation if the prisoner was human and yet if it does not seem to directly affect us, nobody minds.



Battery hens: Battery hens are chickens crammed into small wire cages in groups of five, in a honeycomb pattern of cages sat atop each other. Through lighting and heat to mimic the season in which chickens lay, and selective breeding of chickens which notoriously lay more eggs, and feed that promotes fattened chickens and the nourishment for more promoting egg-laying, chickens can now produce eggs daily.



The eggs that are laid are often weak-shelled and a sure sign of a battery hen’s egg is the weak yellow colouring of the yolk. Many people try to disguise this by injecting the egg painstakingly with a needle and then inserting a food dye, which then stains the yolk a bright, vibrant yellow. However few know a healthy chicken egg should be with a pale pink shell which may be speckled with brown flecks, and the yolk should be more orange than yellow. Any chicks that hatch which are scrawny or male-and therefore incapable of egg laying, are gassed or crushed to death.

Ducks, turkeys and geese also share the same fate as chickens. The young are reared for up to six weeks in dark sheds force-fed on high-fat-ratio food which makes them grow unnaturally fast. Many cannot cope and their hearts give way, and those that live suffer broken legs, as although the body develops the legs do not and remain stunted, able only to support the weight of which a young fowl would be naturally.



Dairy cows: Kept outside in all weather conditions be it blistering heat or frigid cold, with little grass in the over-grazed field often available due to the amount of cows grazing, cows must endure pregnancy and milking at the same time. Many have distended udders from having to product up to double the amount they need to produce to suckle a calf, as well as contracting leg and hoof problems from almost continuously standing. The calves are removed a day or so after birth, females kept to replenish the herd while males are shot in the head if too malnourished to use for meat. Those remaining males will be sent to veal farms, and then killed before they reach nine to ten weeks old, depending on the length of the journey. Many die from stress, thirst and heat-stroke. As are sheep, cows are tricked into ovulating around every season, often giving birth in the wrong months. Many are fed the remains of their own kind to save money.




Please, buy food that may be a pound extra, but. If we stop buying cheaper products from factory farms because it saves us a little loose change, we can stop them all together.