Animals
Approximately 10 billion (10,000,000,000) farm animals die each year in the United States to produce meat, dairy and eggs. Globally, the number exceeds 57 billion (which is more than five million every hour). The number of fish killed each year for human and animal consumption is much greater, but reported in pounds not numbers.
This immense demand is typically met through intensively-raised animal agriculture known as confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) or factory farming. Below are descriptions of standard operating procedures for these intensive farming systems that are responsible for the vast majority of animals raised for food.
Smaller, mixed farming systems are gaining in popularity but do not negate the need to reduce per capita and aggregate meat consumption (more on mixed farming). While some of these smaller systems treat animals better before slaughter, many still leave egregious practices in place and their animals still contribute to global warming. There is significant concern that smaller farming systems can not meet the current and growing demand for animal products. As such, reducing global meat consumption is a benefit to sustainable and organic farming.
Cows
Cows and steers raised for beef are typically confined in feedlots that pack tens of thousands of animals. These animals have no protection from rain or snow, freezing wind, or searing heat. They are castrated, dehorned, and branded with without the aid of painkillers.
Cows raised for milk are confined in windowless sheds, frequently chained by the neck. Twice a day, they are attached to milking machines. Some are injected with bovine growth hormone to boost milk production to unnaturally high levels, causing udder diseases and additional stress to the animals.
To maintain milk production, cows are artificially inseminated. The newborn calves are removed from their mothers immediately after birth to prevent a drop in milk production in the mother. Most of the male calves are raised and slaughtered for beef. Some are chained by the neck in wood crates for 16 weeks and slaughtered for veal. Most female calves are placed in the dairy herd. When dairy production declines, the cows are slaughtered for beef. Each year, about 39 million cattle and calves are killed for food in the U.S.
Pigs
Breeding sows are repeatedly impregnated and kept in cramped metal gestation crates, which do not allow them to turn around. They give birth and nurse their litter of 10-12 piglets in farrowing crates, nearly as cramped as the gestation crates. The natural nursing period of 12 weeks is cut to 2-4 weeks, so that the sows can be impregnated again. After 3-4 years, they are sold for slaughter.
Approximately 20% of the prematurely weaned piglets die of stress and disease. The survivors are tagged and castrated without anesthesia, then placed in stacked wire cage "nurseries" and fed a synthetic milk replacer. When able to eat solid food, the piglets are transferred to crowded pens, where they are kept for six months, then slaughtered. More than 120 million pigs are killed for food in the U.S. each year.
Chickens
Chickens raised for egg production. Male chicks (who won't lay eggs) are typically dumped into plastic bags, left to suffocate, then ground up for chicken or other animal feed. The females have the tips of their beaks seared off with a hot iron to prevent stress-induced cannibalism. They are crammed 5-7 birds into wire-mesh cages the size of a newspaper page stacked on top of one another. The birds must stand on a sloping wire-mesh floor, which cuts their feet, while the wire-mesh walls rub off their feathers and bruise their skin. When the birds are about 15 months old, they are 'force-molted' - kept in low lighting and fed a low-calorie diet for seven to 14 days, which stresses their systems and increases egg production for about six more months. Afterwards, they are sent to slaughter. 450 million chickens are killed for eggs in the U.S. each year.
Chickens raised for meat are crowded into large windowless sheds that hold as many as 30,000 birds, with each getting less than a square foot of space. Because they are bred to gain weight quickly, many birds are crippled by their own weight and unable to walk. They are then unable to get to food and water or to defend themselves from the other birds who trample them on the way to the feeding station. Over time, the building fills with the poisonous stench of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane. After seven weeks, the chickens are transported to slaughter. About 9.5 billion chickens are killed for meat in the U.S. each year.
More than 300 million turkeys are raised under similar conditions, then killed for food in the U.S. each year.
Fish
Today's commercial fisheries use massive ships the size of football fields and advanced electronic equipment and satellites to track the fish. They kill hundreds of billions of aquatic animals every year, far more than any other industry. In the past 50 years, 90% of large fish populations have been exterminated.
More than 30% of fish and other aquatic animals consumed each year are now raised in 'aquafarms' -- up to 40% die in the aquafarms before farmers can kill them for food.
Fish slaughter plants in the U.S. make no effort to stun fish, who are fully conscious and suffocating when they start down the slaughter line. Large fish, such as salmon, are sometimes bashed on the head with a wooden bat, and many are seriously injured but still conscious when they are cut open.
Wildlife
In addition to the ten billion animals killed each year for human consumption by U.S. animal agriculture, hundreds of thousands of wild animals (prairie dogs, coyotes, wolves, mountain lions, bears, bison, and others) are exterminated to keep them from interfering with agricultural operations. Similarly, tens of millions of starlings and blackbirds are poisoned each year to keep them from eating animal feed.
An even greater threat to wildlife is posed by the destruction of their habitats. Animal agriculture turns hundreds of acres of forest, wetlands, and other habitats into grazing and crop lands to feed farmed animals.
Recommendation: Read more on biodiversity.
