http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/

PART ONE - An Introduction to Factory Farming

Published August 14, 2006
by Larry Parker



Wikipedia states that "Factory farming is a term used to describe a
set of controversial practices in large-scale, intensive agriculture,
usually referring to the industrialized production of livestock,
poultry, and fish. The methods deployed are geared toward making use
of economies of scale to produce the highest output at the lowest
cost."


At first glance, one can't help but notice a few interesting terms in
this definition, like "controversial practices", "intensive
agriculture", and "industrialized production", words that certainly
conjure up a set of powerful images. But of even greater importance
than these is the phrase: "...making use of economies of scale to
produce the highest output at the lowest cost." And, what does this
mean exactly for the purposes of a discussion about farm animals?
Simply that the owners, developers, and managers of factory farms,
under whose care reside hundreds of millions of farm animals, have
only one primary concern in mind, one goal that drives them - the
bottom line! The animals themselves mean nothing more to these
business people beyond their ability to "produce the highest output at
the lowest cost". A far cry from the caring farmer and concerned
caretaker from whom our meat and dairy products were obtained not more
than just a few years ago.


No indeed. What's going on today cannot by any perturbation of meaning
be referred to as farming. Today, with the exception of a few
surviving family farms, our meat and dairy production has become
completely dominated by large corporations. While the animals, whose
lives are controlled by these agribusiness entities, are looked upon
as mere commodities, food machines if you will. And in the quest for
greater profits, the treatment of these creatures has become more and
more barbaric.


At this very moment, countless numbers of animals that possess the
exact same feelings and sensitivities as your dog or your cat are
being forced into lives of protracted suffering and pain. Pigs spend
the majority of their lives confined in small metal cages known as
"gestation crates" where they're not provided enough room to even turn
around. Calves are confined in small cages known as "veal crates"
where, for their entire lives, they're chained by the neck to prevent
them from stretching, lying down comfortably, or turning around,
thereby inhibiting muscular development and making their meat more
tender. Egg-laying hens spend their lives crammed together with four
or five other hens in "battery cages", where they're not allowed
enough room to even walk or stretch their wings. And, tragically
enough, these practices are but the tip of the iceberg!


Factory farms have gained an immeasurable foothold in our economy, and
until such time as the movement to rid ourselves of this cancer gains
enough momentum, other means must be found to protect the animals. At
the very least, we should strive to provide relatively humane living
conditions for them, which, even in an industrialized indoor
environment, is not impossible.


The proponents of factory farms will, of course, do and say anything
they can to defend their "business as usual" position. The lobbies
which support and protect these interests are numerous, and they're
powerful. They'd have you believe that the arguments being made
against them are extremist or alarmist, that the animals really don't
mind the treatment they're receiving, or that the task of feeding a
hungry populace must take precedence over the feelings of the animals.


My response to this is quite simply that you should decide for
yourself what is right and what is wrong, or whether or not the
treatment of the animals should be considered and to what extent.
Please. therefore, take the time to follow and investigate for
yourself the links that have been provided. Educate yourself about
what is going on in this country for the sake of corporate profits and
at the expense of the welfare of defenseless creatures, who, of all
things, look to us for their stewardship.


Next Time: Inside the Heart of Darkness

PART TWO - The Life of a Breeding Sow
http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/
Published August 25, 2006
by Larry Parker



Pigs, much like dogs and cats, are intelligent and responsive
creatures. One is made aware of this simply by watching them forage,
play, or socialize. For many people, pigs make wonderful pets. They
can be taught to use a litter, and they commonly enjoy a good game of
fetch, a scratch on the head, or even a soothing belly rub. Just like
dogs or cats, they're playful, affectionate, inquisitive, and
humorous.

On today's factory farms, however, pigs are prevented from exercising
any of these natural traits. They're shown no affection or compassion,
and they're provided no freedom. Here, within rows of industrial
factory buildings, the breeding sows are crowded together as closely
as possible, each in a separate metallic "gestation crate", for the
entire duration of their pregnancy - about four months. The gestation
crate is unbelievably restrictive, measuring anywhere from 18 inches
to two feet across and about seven feet long. This severe confinement
prevents the females from turning around, and barely provides enough
room to sit or lie down. When they do sit, it's without the benefit of
any straw bedding. The floor beneath their feet is slatted or grated,
thereby allowing the passage of feces and urine, but making it
difficult for the animals to stand. In their attempts to move about,
the pigs inevitably scrape and bruise themselves repeatedly on the
metal bars of their prison, and it isn't long before their bodies are
covered in lesions and tumors.

Another consequence of their imprisonment manifests itself after about
four or five pregnancies and several months of forced inactivity, as
the leg muscles of the animals become severely atrophied from disuse.
Many pigs break their legs while trying to turn around or escape,
while others simply collapse in their cages, unable to support their
own weight.

Veterinary care is rarely provided for these poor creatures, usually
only when some physical disorder threatens to halt the flow of
production. And though the pigs are constantly being pumped full of a
cornucopia of drugs such as antibiotics, hormones, and laxatives, it's
considered unnecessary to include pain relievers as part of their
diet. Denied the basic needs of exercise, fresh air, or even proper
veterinary care, the sows become vulnerable to a large number of
debilitating diseases, including anemia, influenza, cholera,
dysentery, trichinosis, orthostasis, intestinal tract infections, and
pneumonia, to name only a few. Many pigs die needlessly as a result of
these inhumane conditions. The industry, however, views their deaths,
which now occur at a rate of about 14%, as "acceptable losses".

When the sow is ready to give birth, she's moved to another equally
restrictive confinement device known as a "farrowing crate". Here
she'll give birth to and wean her young. In a natural unrestricted
environment the duration of this nursing period varies from 13 to 17
weeks. On the factory farm, however, the piglets are snatched away
after just 3 weeks. The mother is immediately re-impregnated, and then
herded or dragged back to the gestation crate to begin the process all
over again.

After anywhere from three to five years of these forced cyclical
pregnancies, the pig reaches a point where she's considered to be no
longer productive. The money machine has run dry, and at this time,
she'll be afforded the only mercy she's ever known - death!

But only if she's very lucky will even her death be executed in a
merciful fashion.

The "long walk" to slaughter begins with the pigs being herded into
large slaughterhouse trucks. This is typically accomplished by
electrical prodding, dragging with chains, or oftentimes by pushing
them en masse using a tractor or forklift. Not surprisingly, many of
the pigs suffer bruises, torn ligaments, and broken limbs. With
complete disregard for their pain, these injury victims are simply
pushed into the truck with the rest. Then begins the transport itself
which can last as long as 50 or 60 hours [update]. During this time,
the pigs are unlikely to receive food, water, or even relief from
their cramped quarters. Squeezed together as tightly as possible,
they're kept imprisoned in the truck during the entire journey. Many
will die en route from hunger, suffocation, or extreme heat.

Though there are currently no federal regulations which can protect
the animals during their stay on the factory farm, there are laws on
the books which are designed to guarantee them a swift and humane
death. Poorly enforced, however, these laws are all too commonly
abused or simply ignored for the sake of a speedier and more efficient
process. And so the suffering continues right up to the very end!

And what of the offspring?

After being removed from their mothers, the piglets are pushed into
overcrowded pens with bare metal, concrete, or fiberglass floors.
Again, no straw or other form of bedding is provided, and under these
stressful conditions, the piglets often resort to tail-biting. The
industry's solution to this, rather than providing a more relaxed or
comfortable environment, is to perform a surgical technique on the
piglets known as tail-docking (amputating the tail using either
pliers, scissors, or a knife). As an added measure, it's also common
practice to cut the front teeth (again using pliers). Both of these
procedures, not to mention castration, which all the males must
undergo, involve very sensitive areas of the pig's anatomy, and yet
rarely are they performed by a qualified veterinarian or with the
benefit of pain relievers.

After five or six months of being confined in these crowded pens, the
piglets are then shipped off to be processed, packed into waiting
trucks by workers who wear earplugs to muffle the cacophony of screams
and cries. The males, having been fattened during this period, are
sent directly to slaughter, while the females selected for breeding
are introduced to the prisons in which they'll spend the rest of their
lives.

Possibly the most heart-rendering aspect of this entire tragedy is the
psychological impact that a life devoid of any comfort or joy has on
the pigs. For starters, one is most struck by reports which relate how
the mere presence of any human entering the sow pen causes the
creatures to break out instantaneously in waves of squealing and
roaring, violently rattling their cages like beings possessed. Their
fear must be unimaginable. Add to this the commonly experienced
disorders such as chronic stress, depression, frustration, and
aggression. But most disturbing of all are the abnormal repetitive
movements known as stereotypies: waving their heads from side to side,
chewing on thin air, repeatedly biting on or rubbing their snouts
across the bars of their cages, imaginary nest-building with straw
that doesn't exist. Some of the animals, apparently unable to bear
their agony any longer, simply lay motionless, their minds shattered,
their spirits broken.

This then is the life of a sow on the factory farm. A shining
testament to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of man.

It's estimated that at any given time the number of breeding sows
being kept in gestation crates in this country is about 4 million. The
typical factory farm houses anywhere from 3,000 to 50,000 pigs, while
the largest of these facilities is known to hold up to 1.2 million.
Global statistics are even more staggering, where it should be noted
that as of September, 2005, factory farming operations accounted for
more than 40% of the world's total meat production - an increase of
10% over the previous year.

In spite of the seemingly impossible odds which these facts represent,
it's my belief that with time and dedication, the battle to save and
protect these animals can still be won. While the European Union, for
example, is in the process of phasing out gestation crates, England
and Switzerland have already banned their use entirely, as well as a
number of other cruel practices. Isn't it far past time for the United
States to follow suit? As citizens and stewards of this nation,
shouldn't we insist that our government take the steps necessary to
deliver millions of innocent creatures from the suffering they now
endure?


Next Time: Now That You're Here, Take a Look Around

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:10:18 +0100, Geoff
wrote:

http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/

PART THREE - Dairy Cows and Veal Calves

Published September 07, 2006
by Larry Parker



Prior to my learning about the horrors of factory farming, if someone
had told me that there are animals on this earth who for their entire
lives are imprisoned in wooden crates, chained by their necks, and
prevented from performing the simplest of movements such as walking or
turning; that they suffer from malnourishment, deliberately induced to
encourage the onset of disease; and that these things are done to them
to enhance the taste and texture of their cooked flesh for human
consumption, I would have thought that such practices could only be
found within the confines of some fictional tale of the macabre; or
that they were being performed by some tribe of barbarians in complete
isolation from modern-day society.

As we are all discovering, however, the sickening truth is that these
things are done to hundreds of thousands of male calves every year
throughout the United States to produce the meat known as veal, or
more specifically "white veal". But I would have been correct about
one thing - these acts are without question being performed by
barbarians.

The tragic story of the veal calf begins with his mother - the dairy
cow.

In today's dairy factories, the dairy cow is treated as little more
than a piece of machinery, like a tractor or harvester, with no
concern given to her welfare other than that which also encourages her
productive abilities. In order to produce milk, the dairy cow must of
course give birth. Insemination is planned so that this occurs at
about two years of age, and she'll continue to lactate for the next 10
months. However, she's usually re-inseminated after only 2 or 3 months
thereby maximizing her productive cycle. Following the second birth,
her udder is finally given a short rest, though ultimately she'll be
expected to give one birth per year until the strain on her system
proves too much and she's shipped off to slaughter.

The hardship of such an accelerated birth rate is compounded by
various methods used to increase milk production even further. In
addition to automated milking techniques and the use of antibiotics,
the cows are administered a specialized high-protein diet based on
grains and animal byproducts. As they are natural herbivores this diet
is difficult for the cows to digest. Moreover, imposing a carnivorous,
even cannibalistic diet onto dairy cows has resulted in various
outbreaks of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), more popularly
known as Mad Cow Disease, a fatal disorder which progressively attacks
the brain and nervous system.

In recent years, the industry has also seen increased use of the
highly controversial growth hormone, rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth
Hormone), otherwise known as BST (Bovine Somatotropin). rBGH is
designed to increase milk production by approximately 15%. However,
after a single artificially-enhanced lactation, the cow is "worn out"
and becomes so useless she must be sent to slaughter. Most small
family farmers have rejected the product, while it's use has been
banned in both Canada and the European Union.

All these techniques take a tremendous toll on the cow. Pushed into
producing more than 10 times as much milk in peak lactation as her
calf would otherwise require, the life span of a dairy cow is reduced
from 25 years or more to as little as three or four years. Her immune
system is greatly compromised, and she becomes susceptible to a number
of crushing diseases, such as mastitis (painful swelling of the
udder), ketosis (disease of the liver), laminitis or lameness
(resulting from metabolic strain), "milk fever" (unnatural loss of
calcium from the blood supply), and infertility. Sadly, the industry's
solution to these problems is to simply administer more antibiotics.
Why alter the system to accommodate the cow, when you can alter the
cow to accommodate the system?

Because so little attention is given to the welfare of the cows, an
estimated 195,000 per year become so sick they're unable to walk or
even stand. Up until recently, these "downers" were dragged or
bulldozed into slaughterhouse trucks so their meat could still be
harvested. This made perfect sense from a standpoint of profitibility,
since the meat of a cow who dies before slaughter is unusable for
human consumption. Fortunately, due to the indisputable relationship
between downers and recent cases of Mad Cow Disease in North America,
the USDA placed a temporary ban on this practice, forcing the industry
to choose between immediately euthanizing downed cows or reducing
their numbers by treating them more humanely in the first place.
Efforts are currently under way in Congress to make this ban
permanent.

But what of the siblings?

Calves are separated from their mothers after only one to three days,
thereby preventing them from drinking milk intended for human use. As
the suckling period in a natural environment would last anywhere from
6 to 12 months, early separation is distressing for both the mother
and the calf. Furthermore, during the first 6 to 8 weeks of their
lives, many of the calves are kept in individual pens, removed not
only from their mother's attentions, but also from social interactions
with their own kind.

A number of mutilations are routinely performed when the calves are
still very young, such as castration for the males, removal of
supernumerary teats for the females, disbudding (which prevents the
development of horns), and tail-docking. As you might guess, all these
procedures are very painful, yet they're performed without the benefit
of anesthetics or the expertise of a qualified veterinarian.

Most of the females are ultimately selected as replacements for the
dairy herd; while the males are either raised for beef, killed almost
immediately for low grade veal, or confined in "veal crates" for 4 to
6 months to be slaughtered for white veal (also known as "fancy" or
"milk-fed" veal).

It is these "white veal" calves who suffer the most cruel and inhumane
treatment of all. From the time they're first introduced to the "veal
crate", they'll know no other home. This wooden cage is extremely
restrictive, measuring only 2 feet across, and is designed to prevent
the calves from walking, turning around, or even stretching their
legs. Manacled at the neck they're prevented from laying down
comfortably and are even unable to properly groom themselves. The
purpose of all this, of course, is to inhibit muscular growth, thereby
keeping their meat as tender as possible.

But as if this weren't enough, the calves are further abused by
feeding them an all-liquid milk-substitute diet deficient in iron and
fiber. Borderline anemia is thereby induced which produces a pale or
white colored flesh - hence the term "white veal". Even the littlest
of details are attended to, such as denying the calves straw bedding
for fear they may eat the straw which would darken the color of their
flesh; while their crates are made of wood instead of metal to ensure
the calves don't ingest unwanted amounts of iron by licking the bars.

Separated from their mothers at a tender age, prevented from engaging
in social interactions, and even denied physical comfort or any
semblance of a natural existence; it's not surprising that veal calves
suffer from a number of life-altering diseases and impairments.
Physical complications most often observed include abnormal gut
development, stomach ulcers, impaired locomotive abilities, and an
overall weakening of the immune system. Equally lamentable are the
common psychological responses, such as frustration, depression,
aggression, food refusals, acute sensitivity to stimulation, and
chronic stress. Add to this the abnormal repetitive movements known as
stereotypies (tongue rolling, licking or nibbling on the walls of
their crates, or chewing on nonexistent cud).

So from mother to sibling, the vicious cycle is completed, and at just
the right time, the calf is sent to slaughter so that gourmet chefs
and discriminating consumers around the world can relish the perfect
cut of veal.

Approximately 750,000 veal calves are slaughtered in the United States
every year. Similar to their efforts regarding the welfare of breeding
sows, this country is lagging behind England and the European Union,
both of whom have now outlawed the use of veal crates. A few states,
such as Arizona and Florida, are beginning to address the issue, but a
much greater effort is needed. Every one of us can play a part in
this, and if you agree the suffering must stop, there are things you
can do. Research current legislative efforts, both at the state and
federal levels. Find out where your representatives stand on these
issues. Let them know where you stand. Look for citizen-sponsered
propositions and referendums. Sign the petitions to place these
initiatives on your state's ballot, then vote for them.

Time and again, polls show conclusively that the people of this
country aren't happy about the way farm animals are being treated. All
they need is an opportunity to express their concerns at the ballot
box, and change will follow.


Next Time: The Worst of the Worst

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:10:18 +0100, Geoff
wrote:

http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/

PART FOUR - The Birds We Consume

Published September 19, 2006
by Larry Parker



Much of the media's attention has focused recently on the debate
surrounding Chicago's foie gras ban. Most surprising to me in all this
is how such a large number of restaurant owners, chefs, and consumers
seem to be so devoid of compassion for the animals in question.
Spouting pompous phrases concerning their own rights and freedoms,
these self-indulgent people appear to possess a seriously distorted
sense of priority. Their arguments even take on a sinister aspect when
we consider that what's at stake is merely the satisfying of one's
appetite for an unnecessary delicacy.

Up to now, this series has only dealt with the factory farm atrocities
inflicted on mammals (pigs, cows, and calves), and has shown that the
lives these creatures endure can at times exceed our most horrific
imaginings. So much so, that one might easily conclude there could be
no greater degree of animal cruelty still left to be discovered.
Regretfully, however, this is not the case, and even the torments so
far described must take back seat to those of the industry's feathered
populations - the chickens, the ducks, and the geese.



BROILER CHICKENS

Chickens bred for their meat are known as "broiler" or "roaster"
chickens. The cycle of suffering for these creatures begins with their
mothers, referred to as "breeder" chickens. While still very young,
breeder chickens are inducted into life by having their beaks sheared
off with a hot knife, a very painful procedure performed without
anesthesia and oftentimes resulting in disfigurement or chronic
discomfort. Raised in filthy sheds and kept in intensive confinement,
the chickens rarely if ever see the light of day and are never allowed
to engage in natural or instinctive behaviors. Moreover, for their
entire lives they're maintained on a near-starvation diet resulting in
a constant state of anxiety and frustration. The reasoning behind this
is to prevent them from growing too quickly since their flock has been
bred for accelerated growth; and it's the broiler chicken, not the
breeder chicken, which the industry wants to fatten up. So on behalf
of her offspring, the Mother is condemned to a life of deprivation.

No sooner are they hatched then her chicks are likewise met with a
rude awakening. Literally "poured" down mobile sliding ramps by the
thousands, these newborns are crammed together into holding pens to
await their initiation into hell - a painful debeaking, exactly as was
performed on their mothers. The chicks are then crowded together in
long industrial sheds known as "poultry houses" or "grower houses",
where as many as 40,000 birds will co-exist under one roof. Here
they're packed so densely they barely have enough room to walk, and
the resulting stress often causes the chicks to attack one another out
of frustration - hence the debeaking.

Sanitary practices in grower sheds are literally nonexistent. The
chickens spend their entire lives standing in litter that's infested
with their own feces, causing the air to turn thick with the smell of
ammonia, which in turn mixes with an ever present haze of dust and
feathers. Unable to escape this stifling atmosphere, many of the
chickens suffer from bronchitis, cancer, heat prostration, weakened
immune systems, and "ammonia burn" (a painful eye condition oftentimes
resulting in loss of sight). The virulent bacteria known as
salmonella, which causes food poisoning in humans, is also widespread.
In an attempt to keep as many chickens as possible alive in these
disease-ridden conditions, the industry responds in much the same way
as it does with pigs and cows, by simply administering increased
dosages of antibiotics.

But the living conditions in grower houses are only half the story.
Scientifically bred for enhanced tissue growth in the breast and thigh
areas, and with the addition of specialized drugs, the birds rapidly
swell to full proportion, reaching their market weight of 3-1/2 pounds
in just 6 or 7 weeks. The chickens pay the price though as their
heart, lungs, and other organs are unable to keep pace with the
accelerated growth rate. Large numbers of them suffer from congestive
heart failure, gastrointestinal diseases, and chronic respiratory
infections. Furthermore, their legs are unable to support the abnormal
weight gain, commonly resulting in crippling, lameness, and bone
disease. Because of obesity, as many as 90% of broiler chickens are
rendered incapable of walking by the time they're 6 weeks old. Many
die simply because they're unable to reach a water nozzle.

Heart attacks, lung collapse, and crippling leg disorders all
contribute to hundreds of millions of broiler chickens dying every
year before they can even reach slaughter. Those who manage to stay
alive long enough are rounded up after 6 or 7 weeks and literally
thrown or stuffed into small open-air crates for transport to the
slaughterhouse. They're so severely mishandled during this process
that a large number of them suffer from bruises and broken bones. The
crates are then stacked on top of each other and loaded onto the backs
of large transport trucks. Forced to travel for up to 12 hours without
food or water and exposed to the extremes of heat and cold, many more
birds die before reaching their destination. These are the lucky ones!

As poultry is specifically exempted from protections of the federal
Humane Slaughter Act, the chickens, in their final moments, find
themselves facing the prospect of a horrifying and merciless death.
Shackled by their feet, the birds are routed through an assembly-line
station to be electrically stunned and to have their throats sliced.
Both processes are notoriously innefficient, however, and as many as
25% of the birds are delivered to their final stop, the scalding
tanks, while still fully conscious. So after suffering an
unsympathetic existence from the time of their birth, these
unfortunate creatures are finally released from life by being boiled
alive.



EGG-LAYING HENS

Chickens bred for egg production, otherwise known as egg-laying hens
or "layers", comprise a completely different branch of the poultry
industry - one, however, that's no less brutal. To begin with, the
male chicks are unable to lay eggs and therefore offer no substantial
value to the industry. They're killed instantly, either ground into
animal meal or stuffed into plastic bags and left to slowly suffocate
under each other's weight.

The females, on the other hand, begin their lives with the painful
procedure of debeaking. As with broiler chickens, this is done to
counteract aggressive behaviors induced by stress. The birds are then
jammed into tiny wire enclosures known as "battery cages", as many as
4 to 7 chickens occupying a single cage measuring no more than sixteen
inches across. Here they'll spend the remainder of their lives. Unable
to move around or spread their wings, and barely able to stand, the
hens are pressed up against the sides of the cages, resulting in
scratching, bruising, and loss of feathers. No veterinary care is
provided, and the untreated wounds become infected, turning into
festering sores.

The wire floor beneath them is sloped, allowing their eggs to roll
into a collection trough, but causing injury to their feet and
furthermore causing the feet of many chickens to become entangled.
Many more birds have been observed with their heads or wings entangled
in the sides and tops of the cages. Unable to reach food or water,
these unfortunate victims slowly starve to death, and far too often
the carcasses of the dead and dying are simply left in the cages to be
devoured by flies and other insects.

The battery cages are stacked one on top of another and arranged in
long rows, allowing as many as 100,000 or more chickens to be stored
in a single shed. Birds in the lower tiers are constantly showered
with the excrement of those in the upper tiers. Disease is commonplace
in an environment polluted by infectious lesions, rotting corpses, and
the unremoved excrement from tens of thousands of chickens. By way of
solution, the industry once again relies on it's standard remedy of
antibiotics.

Denied the ability to exercise while encouraged into a state of
constant egg production, a large number of hens suffer from
osteoporosis and calcium deficiency. Their bones become weakened and
brittle, resulting in crippling and even more deaths. After about a
year or two of this regimen, the hens are "spent" - physically and
emotionally depleted. But the industry isn't ready to let go just yet.
A procedure referred to as "forced molting" is applied which involves
denying the hens food and water while keeping them in darkness for up
to two weeks, thereby shocking them into one or more additional
egg-laying cycles. The consequences of this are catastrophic to the
birds, as their already exhausted bodies are traumatized even further,
causing 5% to 15% more to die as a result.

Bruised, crippled, diseased, and nearly catatonic, the "spent" hens
are finally shipped to slaughter or to landfills to be buried alive.



FOIE GRAS

Ducks and geese raised for foie gras also live every day of their
lives in misery and are arguably the most tortured and abused of all
the animals on factory farms. Debilled at an early age, the birds are
kept in filthy sheds, either crammed and crowded into small pens, or
worse still, confined in individual cages, deprived of the ability to
walk, turn around, or spread their wings. Sanitation in the sheds is
nonexistent, as the floors are covered in feces and vomit. Just as
tragic, yet not as well publicised, is the fact that ducks require
regular submersion in water to maintain their health, and yet access
to this type of activity simply doesn't exist. Their eyes and mucous
membranes clog with infections, and many are permanently blinded.

But it's the practice of force feeding which constitutes the true
aspiration of cruelty. Two or three times a day workers rotate
throughout the sheds grabbing each of the ducks and jamming a long
metal tube down their throats. Up to a pound of nutritionally
deficient corn mash, about 10% of the bird's total body weight, is
then pumped through the tube directly into their bellies. To grasp the
effect of this, try to imagine a 150 pound man having 15 pounds of
meal forced into him two or even three times a day.

This routine continues for up to 4 weeks, and the impact on the birds
is nothing short of devastating. The most prominent and in fact the
intended result is that their livers become diseased and swell to ten
times normal size. The inflated organ rubs and presses against other
organs of the body causing extreme pain. Breathing becomes laborious
for the birds, while their legs are forced to angle outwards, making
the act of walking nearly impossible. In this crippled state, they're
unable to even groom themselves.

A large percentage of the birds suffer from obesity, pneumonia, blood
toxicity, nerve damage, anal hemorrhaging, bacterial and fungal
infections in the digestive tract, and impaction of undigested food in
the esophagus. Many of them die when their livers become so huge they
literally burst open. Many die from suffocation, as they try to inhale
regurgitated food. Many die because they're unable to defend
themselves from the numerous rats who roam the sheds with impunity.
And as if this weren't enough, many die simply because of
irresponsible workers carelessly puncturing their throats with the
feeding tube.

Finally, after about 4 weeks, the surviving birds are slaughtered, and
their enlarged diseased livers are harvested for the gourmet delicacy
known as foie gras. Bon appetit!

At present there are only two companies responsible for foie gras
production in the United States: Sonoma Foie Gras in California and
Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York. Landmark legislation enacted by
California in 2004 bans the practice of force-feeding as well as the
sale of foie gras produced from force feeding, thereby ensuring that
Sonomo Foie Gras will soon be out of business. However, the larger of
the two companies, Hudson Valley, is still operating without
restriction, and is responsible for the raising and slaughtering of
400,000 birds per year. But even this is an insignificant amount
compared to the more than 24 million birds killed for foie gras every
year in France, accounting for 75% of the worlds total production.

Numerous European nations have outlawed foie gras production,
including Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Norway, Finland,
Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark. Israel, once the world's fourth
largest producer, banned foie gras production in 2005. The European
Union, meanwhile, continues to place pressure on France and other
producing nations within it's scope, while moving closer to enacting
legislation which could one day abolish this offensive practice
throughout all of Europe.


Next Time: Where do we go from here?

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:10:18 +0100, Geoff
wrote:

http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/

PART FIVE - Can We Help the Animals?

Published September 26, 2006
by Larry Parker



Polls have shown time and again that the American public is not in
agreement with the way farm animals are treated today. And yet weeks,
months, even years pass with no action being taken to correct the
situation. Agribusiness corporations, in the meantime, methodically
and with unwavering determination, move ahead with their plans for
expansion - a new breeding sow facility here, a new egg-laying
operation there; more cheap low-quality meat for the masses, more
infestation of our air and our water, more health hazards to our
children, more profit for the rich at the expense of, well, everyone;
and lest we forget, more animals bred to a life of undeserved agony.
Why do we stand idly by as time and again these cancerous tumors take
root in our land?

Is the reality of the situation simply too unpleasant for us to look
squarely in the eye? Do we instinctively avert our glance from the
images of graphic suffering, choosing instead to push these horrors to
the farthest recesses of our minds? And do we then return to the
familiar trappings of a sanitized universe, having successfully
distanced ourselves from this transitory glimpse into hell, ensuring
ourselves a good night's sleep, and persuading ourselves that someone
else is responsible for the misery and wretchedness of the poor
creatures who just happen to comprise a large portion of our diet?

But what if we were forced to take a closer, more defining look at the
problem? What if, for example, our job was that of feeding a veal
calf? Could we in all consciousness administer a formula to this weeks
old infant that we knew was making him sicker and sicker? And as he
strained against the tether about his neck, would we see that he
wished only to be able to walk, play, or even just stretch his legs?
How easily could we bear witness to this constant agonizing struggle,
knowing one day his resolve would begin to weaken, as he slowly gave
in to depression, becoming listless and dispirited, but still unable
to escape his physical torment?

Or what if, instead, we were assigned the task of force feeding ducks
being raised for foie gras? How easy would it be for us to forcibly
grab the neck of one duck after another, jamming a long feeding tube
down their throats, while pumping obscene quantities of soggy mush
into their stomachs? And as this regimen wore on for days or even
weeks, would we take the time to notice the increasing numbers of
birds clumsily trying to stand or walk, but unable to do so without
toppling over? As they lay on their abdomens, crippled and in pain,
would we even perceive the ones pushing themselves along with their
wings across a feces-covered floor trying desperately to reach a water
nozzle?

Is it possible that even these horrifying images would fail to stir
us? Have we truly become so indifferent to the tragedy of real-life
suffering that nothing lights a fire beneath us?

Maybe our problem is that we're too distracted by an environment which
promotes and even rewards our self-indulgence. This would be a nice
way of saying that we're selfish, and through the eyes of the rest of
the world, it must certainly seem that way. We're affluent,
comfortable, well-fed; possessing magnificent homes, lavish wardrobes,
cars, computers, cellphones; taking for granted the benefits of
regulated climates, effortless transportation, and nightly
entertainment; materially fulfilled beyond the wildest aspirations of
our ancestors. Yet, in the process of achieving these lofty ambitions,
have we possibly lost sight of the fact that, as we knew all along,
there would be a price to pay for our accrued wealth? And while
focusing on the rewards, were we not paying enough attention to the
fact that this price was being extracted from us every step of the way
- a slice of our humanity here, a piece of our soul there? Bit by bit,
matching our progress at every turn, gradually transforming us from
what we used to be into what we are today?

And do we now wander a bit too carelessly through our gilded lives
possessing a degree less of sensitivity and a degree more of
callousness, having allowed ourselves to become unsympathetic and
uncaring to all but that which affects our own sphere of influence,
our inner sanctum? And though we may still care about things like
cruelty to animals, have our priorities become so skewed over time,
that we discover with increasing ease we can convince ourselves there
are simply too many other "more important" things to worry about?

I wonder how many hundreds of communities have come to the realization
too late that factory farms were one of the things they should have
been worrying about, as they woke up one morning to a foul stench in
the air, their water contaminated, their land devalued, an unusual
number of their residents taken ill. I wonder, too, if they possibly
noticed the presence of a new neighbor in their midst - a gulag of
insidious proportions and incalculable torments. Venturing close
enough to this beast might they even be able to hear the screams
emanating from within? I also wonder how many more communities will
allow their vision of America to be tainted by these corporate
cesspools, spewing pollution into their environment while causing
agony to untold numbers of innocent creatures.

So at what point will we decide to stop turning the other way? How
close will the problem have to get before it becomes our problem?
Close enough to smell? Close enough to hear? Close enough to slap what
remains of our humanity in the face, and scream at us to wake the hell
up? What will it take to make us recognize that when an environment
exists which allows for the wholesale treatment of animals as though
they were objects or machines rather than living beings, something is
horribly wrong; and that it's not only our problem, it's our
responsibility to act and to act quickly, lest we wake up one morning
and find that the time to act has passed us by?

Many have responded to the situation by adapting a vegetarian or vegan
standard. This is a good thing, since every person who makes this
choice translates to one less person lending financial support to
industrial farming. However, as much as I respect and admire anyone
who would completely re-evaluate their eating habits or even their
entire lifestyle on behalf of a mistreated animal, it simply isn't
enough. Successfully purging meat and dairy products from our table is
one thing, but how much will such actions contribute to actually
stopping the pain and abuse? Right now, about 6.6 billion people, all
but 1% of the world's population, depend on a meat-based diet. One
day, this may dramatically change, but over the course of the next few
decades, I seriously question whether enough people will ever abandon
their carnivorous values to have a significant impact on the current
state of agriculture. Meat is a cornerstone of our lives. One might
say we're addicted, fixated, even enslaved.

No, something far more effective is demanded of us. To bring about
significant reform, what we really need is the rule of law. While one
person can make a difference, one law can make an enormous difference.
And even people who're unwilling to give up their dependence on meat,
might still be persuaded to support legislation which would guarantee
a more compassionate treatment of the animals they consume. In short,
we need to be practical and pursue those actions which will bring
about real relief to the victims in question.

One thing is certain. To a large degree, we can no longer depend on
our elected officials to come riding in on a white horse and save the
day. Over time, corruption in government has become the rule rather
than the exception, while special interests and elected
representatives walk so closely in unison with each other it's
actually getting hard to tell them apart. Like siamese twins they
traverse the halls of assembly, their very presence making a mockery
of the institutions they've been designated to uphold. I sometimes
wonder, in fact, if special interest groups could possibly squeeze one
more unscrupulous politician into their back pocket. Honestly, it must
be unbelievably crowded in there.

Corruption notwithstanding, however, average citizens still possess
the power to control our legislative processes. In approximately half
the states of this nation, an electoral procedure known as the voter
initiative allows citizens to circumvent their elected representatives
on virtually any issue. Clearly, this is no easy task, requiring a
submission process that must meet specified regulations, formats,
deadlines, etc., not to mention the garnering of a substantial number
of petition signatures from registered voters. Fortunately there are a
large number of state animal welfare and protection agencies, as well
as numerous national animal rights organizations, who are more than
willing to offer their support for these efforts.

A prime example of how such an endeavor can succeed is Proposition
204, currently on the Arizona ballot, which according to polls should
have no trouble in passing this November. Proposition 204 is a
landmark voter initiative which will ease the living conditions for
breeding sows and veal calves contained and processed anywhere within
the state; and has not only been tirelessly supported by the Arizona
Humane Society, but has also received generous financial assistance
from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Farm
Sanctuary, two highly-respected and powerful animal rights
organizations.

In those states not offering the initiative process, a more
community-minded approach becomes necessary, involving the
organization of grassroots movements and campaigns, again with the
help of statewide and national animal rights agencies. By tapping into
the inherent compassion that most of us feel for animals, it then
becomes possible to develop a strongly united constituency, motivating
even the most corrupt of politicians to re-evaluate the terms of their
professional survival.

And what about the federal arena? In June of this year, a
groundbreaking piece of legislation, H.R.5557 was introduced in the
U.S. House and referred to the Committee on Agriculture and the
Committee on Government Reform by Representative Christopher Shays of
Connecticut. In a nutshell, the provisions of this bill would prohibit
the federal government from purchasing food derived from any animal
not raised in compliance with a stipulated set of humane requirements.
At a minimum, the bill would positively impact and improve the lives
of millions of animals throughout the nation.

But now for the bad news. Little if any action will doubtless be taken
on H.R.5557 till after the Legislature breaks for mid-term elections.
And even then, if you know anything about Congress, you know that
massive amounts of bills are being introduced to committees on a
continuing basis. The odds of any one statute surviving amidst a
countless throng of legislative wishlists and local concerns is slim
at best. What a bill needs to rise above it's peers is sponsorship,
and at present, H.R.5557 is sponsored by only 13 members. Please
contact your representative in the House (find out who this is here)
and ask them to offer their sponsorship. You can also contact members
of the two relevant House committees (find out who these are here and
here) and ask for their support. I can guarantee you these congressmen
are already being bombarded with correspondence from those who would
like nothing better than to see the factory farm environment remain
exactly as it is.

I don't know if farm animals sit in their caged prisons day after day
yearning for someone or something to rescue them or whether they
simply pass the time, languishing in misery, believing this is how
their lives are supposed to be. What I do know is that these are
sentient beings. They think, they feel, they learn, they remember,
they forget. They're capable of experiencing joy, excitement, stress,
anxiety, and fear. And right now, they're enduring a great amount of
injury due to the actions of humans, actions that are an abomination.
At times the idea of their torment consumes my thoughts, keeping me
awake at night, filling me with rage, moving me to tears, and stirring
me to action. There's no doubt in my mind these poor creatures are in
desperate need of rescuing. Their pain is unbearable. It's unjustified
and unwarranted. It's a crime against creation and an insult to the
creator.

Won't you please help them?

See

http://www.ciwf.org/

http://www.viva.org.uk/

www.animalaid.org.uk

www.hillside.org.uk

http://www.matthewscully.com/fear_factories.htm

Fear Factories: The Case for Compassionate Conservatism – for Animals
By Matthew Scully
The American Conservative, May 23, 2005


A few years ago I began a book about cruelty to animals and about
factory farming in particular, problems that had been in the back of
my mind for a long while. At the time I viewed factory farming as one
of the lesser problems facing humanity—a small wrong on the grand
scale of good and evil but too casually overlooked and too glibly
excused.

This view changed as I acquainted myself with the details and saw a
few typical farms up close. By the time I finished the book, I had
come to view the abuses of industrial farming as a serious moral
problem, a truly rotten business for good reason passed over in polite
conversation. Little wrongs, when left unattended, can grow and spread
to become grave wrongs, and precisely this had happened on our factory
farms.

The result of these ruminations was Dominion: The Power of Man, the
Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. And though my tome never
quite hit the bestseller lists, there ought to be some special
literary prize for a work highly recommended in both the Wall Street
Journal and Vegetarian Teen. When you enjoy the accolades of PETA and
Policy Review, Deepak Chopra and Gordon Liddy, Peter Singer and
Charles Colson, you can at least take comfort in the diversity of your
readership.

The book also provided an occasion for fellow conservatives to get
beyond their dislike for particular animal-rights groups and to
examine cruelty issues on the merits. Conservatives have a way of
dismissing the subject, as if where animals are concerned nothing very
serious could ever be at stake. And though it is not exactly true that
liberals care more about these issues—you are no more likely to find
reflections or exposés concerning cruelty in The Nation or The New
Republic than in any journal of the Right—it is assumed that
animal-protection causes are a project of the Left, and that the
proper conservative position is to stand warily and firmly against
them.

I had a hunch that the problem was largely one of presentation and
that by applying their own principles to animal-welfare issues
conservatives would find plenty of reasons to be appalled. More to the
point, having acknowledged the problems of cruelty, we could then
support reasonable remedies. Conservatives, after all, aren’t shy
about discoursing on moral standards or reluctant to translate the
most basic of those standards into law. Setting aside the distracting
rhetoric of animal rights, that’s usually what these questions come
down to: what moral standards should guide us in our treatment of
animals, and when must those standards be applied in law?

Industrial livestock farming is among a whole range of animal-welfare
concerns that extends from canned trophy-hunting to whaling to product
testing on animals to all sorts of more obscure enterprises like the
exotic-animal trade and the factory farming of bears in China for bile
believed to hold medicinal and aphrodisiac powers. Surveying the
various uses to which animals are put, some might be defensible,
others abusive and unwarranted, and it’s the job of any conservative
who attends to the subject to figure out which are which. We don’t
need novel theories of rights to do this. The usual distinctions that
conservatives draw between moderation and excess, freedom and license,
moral goods and material goods, rightful power and the abuse of power,
will all do just fine.

As it is, the subject hardly comes up at all among conservatives, and
what commentary we do hear usually takes the form of ridicule directed
at animal-rights groups. Often conservatives side instinctively with
any animal-related industry and those involved, as if a thing is right
just because someone can make money off it or as if our sympathies
belong always with the men just because they are men.

I had an exchange once with an eminent conservative columnist on this
subject. Conversation turned to my book and to factory farming.
Holding his hands out in the “stop” gesture, he said, “I don’t want to
know.” Granted, life on the factory farm is no one’s favorite subject,
but conservative writers often have to think about things that are
disturbing or sad. In this case, we have an intellectually formidable
fellow known to millions for his stern judgments on every matter of
private morality and public policy. Yet nowhere in all his writings do
I find any treatment of any cruelty issue, never mind that if you
asked him he would surely agree that cruelty to animals is a cowardly
and disgraceful sin.

And when the subject is cruelty to farmed animals—the moral standards
being applied in a fundamental human enterprise—suddenly we’re in
forbidden territory and “I don’t want to know” is the best he can do.
But don’t we have a responsibility to know? Maybe the whole subject
could use his fine mind and his good heart.

As for the rights of animals, rights in general are best viewed in
tangible terms, with a view to actual events and consequences. Take
the case of a hunter in Texas named John Lockwood, who has just
pioneered the online safari. At his canned-hunting ranch outside San
Antonio, he’s got a rifle attached to a camera and the camera wired up
to the Internet, so that sportsmen going to Live-shot.com will
actually be able to fire at baited animals by remote control from
their computers. “If the customer were to wound the animal,” explains
the San Antonio Express-News, “a staff person on site could finish it
off.” The “trophy mounts” taken in these heroics will then be prepared
and shipped to the client’s door, and if it catches on Lockwood will
be a rich man.

Very much like animal farming today, the hunting “industry” has seen a
collapse in ethical standards, and only in such an atmosphere could
Lockwood have found inspiration for this latest innovation—denying
wild animals the last shred of respect. Under the laws of Texas and
other states, Lockwood and others in his business use all sorts of
methods once viewed as shameful: baits, blinds, fences to trap hunted
animals in ranches that advertise a “100-percent-guaranteed kill.”
Affluent hunters like to unwind by shooting cage-reared pheasants,
ducks, and other birds, firing away as the fowl of the air are
released before them like skeet, with no limit on the day’s kill.
Hunting supply stores are filled with lures, infrared lights,
high-tech scopes, and other gadgetry to make every man a marksman.

Lockwood doesn’t hear anyone protesting those methods, except for a
few of those nutty activist types. Why shouldn’t he be able to offer
paying customers this new hunting experience as well? It is like
asking a smut-peddler to please have the decency to keep children out
of it. Lockwood is just one step ahead of the rest, and there is no
standard of honor left to stop him.

First impressions are usually correct in questions of cruelty to
animals, and here most of us would agree that Live-shot.com does not
show our fellow man at his best. We would say that the whole thing is
a little tawdry and even depraved, that the creatures Lockwood has “in
stock” are not just commodities. We would say that these animals
deserve better than the fate he has in store for them.

As is invariably the case in animal-rights issues, what we’re really
looking for are safeguards against cruel and presumptuous people. We
are trying to hold people to their obligations, people who could spare
us the trouble if only they would recognize a few limits on their own
conduct.

Conservatives like the sound of “obligation” here, and those who
reviewed Dominion were relieved to find me arguing more from this
angle than from any notion of rights. “What the PETA crowd doesn’t
understand,” Jonah Goldberg wrote, “or what it deliberately confuses,
is that human compassion toward animals is an obligation of humans,
not an entitlement for animals.” Another commentator put the point in
religious terms: “[W]e have a moral duty to respect the animal world
as God’s handiwork, treating animals with ‘the mercy of our Maker’ …
But mercy and respect for animals are completely different from rights
for animals—and we should never confuse the two.” Both writers
confessed they were troubled by factory farming and concluded with the
uplifting thought that we could all profit from further reflection on
our obligation of kindness to farm animals.

The only problem with this insistence on obligation is that after a
while it begins to sounds like a hedge against actually being held to
that obligation. It leaves us with a high-minded attitude but no
accountability, free to act on our obligations or to ignore them
without consequences, personally opposed to cruelty but unwilling to
impose that view on others.

Treating animals decently is like most obligations we face, somewhere
between the most and the least important, a modest but essential
requirement to living with integrity. And it’s not a good sign when
arguments are constantly turned to precisely how much is mandatory and
how much, therefore, we can manage to avoid.

If one is using the word “obligation” seriously, moreover, then there
is no practical difference between an obligation on our end not to
mistreat animals and an entitlement on their end not to be mistreated
by us. Either way, we are required to do and not do the same things.
And either way, somewhere down the logical line, the entitlement would
have to arise from a recognition of the inherent dignity of a living
creature. The moral standing of our fellow creatures may be humble,
but it is absolute and not something within our power to confer or
withhold. All creatures sing their Creator’s praises, as this truth is
variously expressed in the Bible, and are dear to Him for their own
sakes.

A certain moral relativism runs through the arguments of those hostile
or indifferent to animal welfare—as if animals can be of value only
for our sake, as utility or preference decrees. In practice, this
outlook leaves each person to decide for himself when animals rate
moral concern. It even allows us to accept or reject such knowable
facts about animals as their cognitive and emotional capacities, their
conscious experience of pain and happiness.

Elsewhere in contemporary debates, conservatives meet the foe of moral
relativism by pointing out that, like it or not, we are all dealing
with the same set of physiological realities and moral truths. We
don’t each get to decide the facts of science on a situational basis.
We do not each go about bestowing moral value upon things as it
pleases us at the moment. Of course, we do not decide moral truth at
all: we discern it. Human beings in their moral progress learn to
appraise things correctly, using reasoned moral judgment to perceive a
prior order not of our devising.

C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man calls this “the doctrine of
objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true,
and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the
kind of things we are.” Such words as honor, piety, esteem, and
empathy do not merely describe subjective states of mind, Lewis
reminds us, but speak to objective qualities in the world beyond that
merit those attitudes in us. “[T]o call children delightful or old men
venerable,” he writes, “is not simply to record a psychological fact
about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to
recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether
we make it or not.”

This applies to questions of cruelty as well. A kindly attitude toward
animals is not a subjective sentiment; it is the correct moral
response to the objective value of a fellow creature. Here, too,
rational and virtuous conduct consists in giving things their due and
in doing so consistently. If one animal’s pain—say, that of one’s
pet—is real and deserving of sympathy, then the pain of essentially
identical animals is also meaningful, no matter what conventional
distinctions we have made to narrow the scope of our sympathy. If it
is wrong to whip a dog or starve a horse or bait bears for sport or
grossly abuse farm animals, it is wrong for all people in every place.

The problem with moral relativism is that it leads to capriciousness
and the despotic use of power. And the critical distinction here is
not between human obligations and animal rights, but rather between
obligations of charity and obligations of justice.

Active kindness to animals falls into the former category. If you take
in strays or help injured wildlife or donate to animal charities,
those are fine things to do, but no one says you should be compelled
to do them. Refraining from cruelty to animals is a different matter,
an obligation of justice not for us each to weigh for ourselves. It is
not simply unkind behavior, it is unjust behavior, and the prohibition
against it is non-negotiable. Proverbs reminds us of this—“a righteous
man regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the
wicked are cruel”—and the laws of America and of every other advanced
nation now recognize the wrongfulness of such conduct with our cruelty
statutes. Often applying felony-level penalties to protect certain
domestic animals, these state and federal statutes declare that even
though your animal may elsewhere in the law be defined as your
property, there are certain things you may not do to that creature,
and if you are found harming or neglecting the animal, you will answer
for your conduct in a court of justice.

There are various reasons the state has an interest in forbidding
cruelty, one of which is that cruelty is degrading to human beings.
The problem is that many thinkers on this subject have strained to
find indirect reasons to explain why cruelty is wrong and thereby to
force animal cruelty into the category of the victimless crime. The
most common of these explanations asks us to believe that acts of
cruelty matter only because the cruel person does moral injury to
himself or sullies his character—as if the man is our sole concern and
the cruelly treated animal is entirely incidental.

Once again, the best test of theory is a real-life example. In 2002,
Judge Alan Glenn of Tennessee’s Court of Criminal Appeals heard the
case of a married couple named Johnson, who had been found guilty of
cruelty to 350 dogs lying sick, starving, or dead in their puppy-mill
kennel—a scene videotaped by police. Here is Judge Glenn’s response to
their supplications for mercy:

“The victims of this crime were animals that could not speak up to the
unbelievable conduct of Judy Fay Johnson and Stanley Paul Johnson that
they suffered. Several of the dogs have died and most had physical
problems such as intestinal worms, mange, eye problems, dental
problems and emotional problems and socialization problems … .
Watching this video of the conditions that these dogs were subjected
to was one of the most deplorable things this Court has observed. …

“[T]his Court finds that probation would not serve the ends of
justice, nor be in the best interest of the public, nor would this
have a deterrent effect for such gross behavior. … The victims were
particularly vulnerable. You treated the victims with exceptional
cruelty. …

“There are those who would argue that you should be confined in a
house trailer with no ventilation or in a cell three-by-seven with
eight or ten other inmates with no plumbing, no exercise and no
opportunity to feel the sun or smell fresh air. However, the courts of
this land have held that such treatment is cruel and inhuman, and it
is. You will not be treated in the same way that you treated these
helpless animals that you abused to make a dollar.”

Only in abstract debates of moral or legal theory would anyone quarrel
with Judge Glenn’s description of the animals as “victims” or deny
that they were entitled to be treated better. Whether we call this a
“right” matters little, least of all to the dogs, since the only right
that any animal could possibly exercise is the right to be free from
human abuse, neglect, or, in a fine old term of law, other “malicious
mischief.” What matters most is that prohibitions against human
cruelty be hard and binding. The sullied souls of the Johnsons are for
the Johnsons to worry about. The business of justice is to punish
their offense and to protect the creatures from human wrongdoing. And
in the end, just as in other matters of morality and justice, the
interests of man are served by doing the right thing for its own sake.

There is only one reason for condemning cruelty that doesn’t beg the
question of exactly why cruelty is a wrong, a vice, or bad for our
character: that the act of cruelty is an intrinsic evil. Animals
cruelly dealt with are not just things, not just an irrelevant detail
in some self-centered moral drama of our own. They matter in their own
right, as they matter to their Creator, and the wrongs of cruelty are
wrongs done to them. As The Catholic Encyclopedia puts this point,
there is a “direct and essential sinfulness of cruelty to the animal
world, irrespective of the results of such conduct on the character of
those who practice it.”

Our cruelty statutes are a good and natural development in Western
law, codifying the claims of animals against human wrongdoing, and,
with the wisdom of men like Judge Glenn, asserting those claims on
their behalf. Such statutes, however, address mostly random or wanton
acts of cruelty. And the persistent animal-welfare questions of our
day center on institutional cruelties—on the vast and systematic
mistreatment of animals that most of us never see.

Having conceded the crucial point that some animals rate our moral
concern and legal protection, informed conscience turns naturally to
other animals—creatures entirely comparable in their awareness,
feeling, and capacity for suffering. A dog is not the moral equal of a
human being, but a dog is definitely the moral equal of a pig, and
it’s only human caprice and economic convenience that say otherwise.
We have the problem that these essentially similar creatures are
treated in dramatically different ways, unjustified even by the very
different purposes we have assigned to them. Our pets are accorded
certain protections from cruelty, while the nameless creatures in our
factory farms are hardly treated like animals at all. The challenge is
one of consistency, of treating moral equals equally, and living
according to fair and rational standards of conduct.

Whatever terminology we settle on, after all the finer philosophical
points have been hashed over, the aim of the exercise is to prohibit
wrongdoing. All rights, in practice, are protections against human
wrongdoing, and here too the point is to arrive at clear and
consistent legal boundaries on the things that one may or may not do
to animals, so that every man is not left to be the judge in his own
case.

More than obligation, moderation, ordered liberty, or any of the other
lofty ideals we hold, what should attune conservatives to all the
problems of animal cruelty—and especially to the modern factory
farm—is our worldly side. The great virtue of conservatism is that it
begins with a realistic assessment of human motivations. We know man
as he is, not only the rational creature but also, as Socrates told
us, the rationalizing creature, with a knack for finding an angle, an
excuse, and a euphemism. Whether it’s the pornographer who thinks
himself a free-speech champion or the abortionist who looks in the
mirror and sees a reproductive health-care services provider,
conservatives are familiar with the type.

So we should not be all that surprised when told that these very same
capacities are often at work in the things that people do to
animals—and all the more so in our $125 billion a year livestock
industry. The human mind, especially when there is money to be had,
can manufacture grand excuses for the exploitation of other human
beings. How much easier it is for people to excuse the wrongs done to
lowly animals.

Where animals are concerned, there is no practice or industry so low
that someone, somewhere, cannot produce a high-sounding reason for it.
The sorriest little miscreant who shoots an elephant, lying in wait by
the water hole in some canned-hunting operation, is just “harvesting
resources,” doing his bit for “conservation.” The swarms of
government-subsidized Canadian seal hunters slaughtering tens of
thousands of newborn pups—hacking to death these unoffending
creatures, even in sight of their mothers—offer themselves as the
brave and independent bearers of tradition. With the same sanctimony
and deep dishonesty, factory-farm corporations like Smithfield Foods,
ConAgra, and Tyson Foods still cling to countrified brand names for
their labels—Clear Run Farms, Murphy Family Farms, Happy Valley—to
convince us and no doubt themselves, too, that they are engaged in
something essential, wholesome, and honorable.

Yet when corporate farmers need barbed wire around their Family Farms
and Happy Valleys and laws to prohibit outsiders from taking
photographs (as is the case in two states) and still other laws to
exempt farm animals from the definition of “animals” as covered in
federal and state cruelty statues, something is amiss. And if
conservatives do nothing else about any other animal issue, we should
attend at least to the factory farms, where the suffering is immense
and we are all asked to be complicit.

If we are going to have our meats and other animal products, there are
natural costs to obtaining them, defined by the duties of animal
husbandry and of veterinary ethics. Factory farming came about when
resourceful men figured out ways of getting around those natural
costs, applying new technologies to raise animals in conditions that
would otherwise kill them by deprivation and disease. With no laws to
stop it, moral concern surrendered entirely to economic calculation,
leaving no limit to the punishments that factory farmers could inflict
to keep costs down and profits up. Corporate farmers hardly speak
anymore of “raising” animals, with the modicum of personal care that
word implies. Animals are “grown” now, like so many crops. Barns
somewhere along the way became “intensive confinement facilities” and
the inhabitants mere “production units.”

The result is a world in which billions of birds, cows, pigs, and
other creatures are locked away, enduring miseries they do not
deserve, for our convenience and pleasure. We belittle the activists
with their radical agenda, scarcely noticing the radical cruelty they
seek to redress.

At the Smithfield mass-confinement hog farms I toured in North
Carolina, the visitor is greeted by a bedlam of squealing, chain
rattling, and horrible roaring. To maximize the use of space and
minimize the need for care, the creatures are encased row after row,
400 to 500 pound mammals trapped without relief inside iron crates
seven feet long and 22 inches wide. They chew maniacally on bars and
chains, as foraging animals will do when denied straw, or engage in
stereotypical nest-building with the straw that isn’t there, or else
just lie there like broken beings. The spirit of the place would be
familiar to police who raided that Tennessee puppy-mill run by Stanley
and Judy Johnson, only instead of 350 tortured animals, millions—and
the law prohibits none of it.

Efforts to outlaw the gestation crate have been dismissed by various
conservative critics as “silly,” “comical,” “ridiculous.” It doesn’t
seem that way up close. The smallest scraps of human charity—a bit of
maternal care, room to roam outdoors, straw to lie on—have long since
been taken away as costly luxuries, and so the pigs know the feel only
of concrete and metal. They lie covered in their own urine and
excrement, with broken legs from trying to escape or just to turn,
covered with festering sores, tumors, ulcers, lesions, or what my
guide shrugged off as the routine “pus pockets.”

C.S. Lewis’s description of animal pain—“begun by Satan’s malice and
perpetrated by man’s desertion of his post”—has literal truth in our
factory farms because they basically run themselves through the
wonders of automation, and the owners are off in spacious corporate
offices reviewing their spreadsheets. Rarely are the creatures’
afflictions examined by a vet or even noticed by the migrant laborers
charged with their care, unless of course some ailment threatens
production—meaning who cares about a lousy ulcer or broken leg, as
long as we’re still getting the piglets?

Kept alive in these conditions only by antibiotics, hormones,
laxatives, and other additives mixed into their machine-fed swill, the
sows leave their crates only to be driven or dragged into other
crates, just as small, to bring forth their piglets. Then it’s back to
the gestation crate for another four months, and so on back and forth
until after seven or eight pregnancies they finally expire from the
punishment of it or else are culled with a club or bolt-gun.

As you can see at www.factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm, industrial
livestock farming operates on an economy of scale, presupposing a
steady attrition rate. The usual comforting rejoinder we hear—that
it’s in the interest of farmers to take good care of their animals—is
false. Each day, in every confinement farm in America, you will find
cull pens littered with dead or dying creatures discarded like trash.

For the piglets, it’s a regimen of teeth cutting, tail docking
(performed with pliers, to heighten the pain of tail chewing and so
deter this natural response to mass confinement), and other
mutilations. After five or six months trapped in one of the grim
warehouses that now pass for barns, they’re trucked off, 355,000 pigs
every day in the life of America, for processing at a furious pace of
thousands per hour by migrants who use earplugs to muffle the screams.
All of these creatures, and billions more across the earth, go to
their deaths knowing nothing of life, and nothing of man, except the
foul, tortured existence of the factory farm, having never even been
outdoors.

But not to worry, as a Smithfield Foods executive assured me, “They
love it.” It’s all “for their own good.” It is a voice conservatives
should instantly recognize, as we do when it tells us that the fetus
feels nothing. Everything about the picture shows bad faith, moral
sloth, and endless excuse-making, all readily answered by conservative
arguments.

We are told “they’re just pigs” or cows or chickens or whatever and
that only urbanites worry about such things, estranged as they are
from the realities of rural life. Actually, all of factory farming
proceeds by a massive denial of reality—the reality that pigs and
other animals are not just production units to be endlessly exploited
but living creatures with natures and needs. The very modesty of those
needs—their humble desires for straw, soil, sunshine—is the gravest
indictment of the men who deny them.

Conservatives are supposed to revere tradition. Factory farming has no
traditions, no rules, no codes of honor, no little decencies to spare
for a fellow creature. The whole thing is an abandonment of rural
values and a betrayal of honorable animal husbandry—to say nothing of
veterinary medicine, with its sworn oath to “protect animal health”
and to “relieve animal suffering.”

Likewise, we are told to look away and think about more serious
things. Human beings simply have far bigger problems to worry about
than the well being of farm animals, and surely all of this zeal would
be better directed at causes of human welfare.

You wouldn’t think that men who are unwilling to grant even a few
extra inches in cage space, so that a pig can turn around, would be in
any position to fault others for pettiness. Why are small acts of
kindness beneath us, but not small acts of cruelty? The larger problem
with this appeal to moral priority, however, is that we are dealing
with suffering that occurs through human agency. Whether it’s
miserliness here, carelessness there, or greed throughout, the result
is rank cruelty for which particular people must answer.

Since refraining from cruelty is an obligation of justice, moreover,
there is no avoiding the implications. All the goods invoked in
defense of factory farming, from the efficiency and higher profits of
the system to the lower costs of the products, are false goods
unjustly derived. No matter what right and praiseworthy things we are
doing elsewhere in life, when we live off a cruel and disgraceful
thing like factory farming, we are to that extent living unjustly, and
that is hardly a trivial problem.

For the religious-minded, and Catholics in particular, no less an
authority than Pope Benedict XVI has explained the spiritual stakes.
Asked recently to weigh in on these very questions, Cardinal Ratzinger
told German journalist Peter Seewald that animals must be respected as
our “companions in creation.” While it is licit to use them for food,
“we cannot just do whatever we want with them. ... Certainly, a sort
of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as
to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed
together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of
living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the
relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”

Factory farmers also assure us that all of this is an inevitable stage
of industrial efficiency. Leave aside the obvious reply that we could
all do a lot of things in life more efficiently if we didn’t have to
trouble ourselves with ethical restraints. Leave aside, too, the tens
of billions of dollars in annual federal subsidies that have helped
megafarms undermine small family farms and the decent communities that
once surrounded them and to give us the illusion of cheap products.
And never mind the collateral damage to land, water, and air that
factory farms cause and the more billions of dollars it costs
taxpayers to clean up after them. Factory farming is a predatory
enterprise, absorbing profit and externalizing costs, unnaturally
propped up by political influence and government subsidies much as
factory-farmed animals are unnaturally sustained by hormones and
antibiotics.

Even if all the economic arguments were correct, conservatives usually
aren’t impressed by breathless talk of inevitable progress. I am asked
sometimes how a conservative could possibly care about animal
suffering in factory farms, but the question is premised on a liberal
caricature of conservatism—the assumption that, for all of our fine
talk about moral values, “compassionate conservatism” and the like,
everything we really care about can be counted in dollars. In the case
of factory farming, and the conservative’s blithe tolerance of it, the
caricature is too close to the truth.

Exactly how far are we all prepared to follow these industrial and
technological advances before pausing to take stock of where things
stand and where it is all tending? Very soon companies like Smithfield
plan to have tens of millions of cloned animals in their factory
farms. Other companies are at work genetically engineering chickens
without feathers so that one day all poultry farmers might be spared
the toil and cost of de-feathering their birds. For years, the many
shills for our livestock industry employed in the “Animal Science” and
“Meat Science” departments of rural universities (we used to call them
Animal Husbandry departments) have been tampering with the genes of
pigs and other animals to locate and expunge that part of their
genetic makeup that makes them stressed in factory farm
conditions—taking away the desire to protect themselves and to live.
Instead of redesigning the factory farm to suit the animals, they are
redesigning the animals to suit the factory farm.

Are there no boundaries of nature and elementary ethics that the
conservative should be the first to see? The hubris of such projects
is beyond belief, only more because of the foolish and frivolous goods
to be gained—blood-free meats and the perfect pork chop.

No one who does not profit from them can look at our modern factory
farms or frenzied slaughter plants or agricultural laboratories with
their featherless chickens and fear-free pigs and think, “Yes, this is
humanity at our finest—exactly as things should be.” Devils charged
with designing a farm could hardly have made it more severe. Least of
all should we look for sanction in Judeo-Christian morality, whose
whole logic is one of gracious condescension, of the proud learning to
be humble, the higher serving the lower, and the strong protecting the
weak.

Those religious conservatives who, in every debate over animal
welfare, rush to remind us that the animals themselves are secondary
and man must come first are exactly right—only they don’t follow their
own thought to its moral conclusion. Somehow, in their pious notions
of stewardship and dominion, we always seem to end up with singular
moral dignity but no singular moral accountability to go with it.

Lofty talk about humanity’s special status among creatures only
invites such questions as: what would the Good Shepherd make of our
factory farms? Where does the creature of conscience get off lording
it over these poor creatures so mercilessly? “How is it possible,” as
Malcolm Muggeridge asked in the years when factory farming began to
spread, “to look for God and sing his praises while insulting and
degrading his creatures? If, as I had thought, all lambs are the Agnus
Dei, then to deprive them of light and the field and their joyous
frisking and the sky is the worst kind of blasphemy.”

The writer B.R. Meyers remarked in The Atlantic, “research could prove
that cows love Jesus, and the line at the McDonald’s drive-through
wouldn’t be one sagging carload shorter the next day …. Has any
generation in history ever been so ready to cause so much suffering
for such a trivial advantage? We deaden our consciences to enjoy—for a
few minutes a day—the taste of blood, the feel of our teeth meeting
through muscle.”

That is a cynical but serious indictment, and we must never let it be
true of us in the choices we each make or urge upon others. If reason
and morality are what set human beings apart from animals, then reason
and morality must always guide us in how we treat them, or else it’s
all just caprice, unbridled appetite with the pretense of piety. When
people say that they like their pork chops, veal, or foie gras just
too much ever to give them up, reason hears in that the voice of
gluttony, willfulness, or at best moral complaisance. What makes a
human being human is precisely the ability to understand that the
suffering of an animal is more important than the taste of a treat.

Of the many conservatives who reviewed Dominion, every last one
conceded that factory farming is a wretched business and a betrayal of
human responsibility. So it should be a short step to agreement that
it also constitutes a serious issue of law and public policy. Having
granted that certain practices are abusive, cruel, and wrong, we must
be prepared actually to do something about them.

Among animal activists, of course, there are some who go too far—there
are in the best of causes. But fairness requires that we judge a cause
by its best advocates instead of making straw men of the worst. There
isn’t much money in championing the cause of animals, so we’re dealing
with some pretty altruistic people who on that account alone deserve
the benefit of the doubt.

If we’re looking for fitting targets for inquiry and scorn, for people
with an angle and a truly pernicious influence, better to start with
groups like Smithfield Foods (my candidate for the worst corporation
in America in its ruthlessness to people and animals alike), the
National Pork Producers Council (a reliable Republican contributor),
or the various think tanks in Washington subsidized by animal-use
industries for intellectual cover.

After the last election, the National Pork Producers Council rejoiced,
“President Bush’s victory ensures that the U.S. pork industry will be
very well positioned for the next four years politically, and pork
producers will benefit from the long-term results of a livestock
agriculture-friendly agenda.” But this is no tribute. And millions of
good people who live in what’s left of America’s small family-farm
communities would themselves rejoice if the president were to announce
that he is prepared to sign a bipartisan bill making some basic
reforms in livestock agriculture.

Bush’s new agriculture secretary, former Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns,
has shown a sympathy for animal welfare. He and the president might
both be surprised at the number and variety of supporters such reforms
would find in the Congress, from Republicans like Chris Smith and
Elton Gallegly in the House to John Ensign and Rick Santorum in the
Senate, along with Democrats such as Robert Byrd, Barbara Boxer, or
the North Carolina congressman who called me in to say that he, too,
was disgusted and saddened by hog farming in his state.

If such matters were ever brought to President Bush’s attention in a
serious way, he would find in the details of factory farming many
things abhorrent to the Christian heart and to his own kindly
instincts. Even if he were to drop into relevant speeches a few of the
prohibited words in modern industrial agriculture (cruel, humane,
compassionate), instead of endlessly flattering corporate farmers for
virtues they lack, that alone would help to set reforms in motion.

We need our conservative values voters to get behind a Humane Farming
Act so that we can all quit averting our eyes. This reform, a set of
explicit federal cruelty statutes with enforcement funding to back it
up, would leave us with farms we could imagine without wincing,
photograph without prosecution, and explain without excuses.

The law would uphold not only the elementary standards of animal
husbandry but also of veterinary ethics, following no more complicated
a principle than that pigs and cows should be able to walk and turn
around, fowl to move about and spread their wings, and all creatures
to know the feel of soil and grass and the warmth of the sun. No need
for labels saying “free-range” or “humanely raised.” They will all be
raised that way. They all get to be treated like animals and not as
unfeeling machines.

On a date certain, mass confinement, sow gestation crates, veal
crates, battery cages, and all such innovations would be prohibited.
This will end livestock agriculture’s moral race to the bottom and
turn the ingenuity of its scientists toward compassionate solutions.
It will remove the federal support that unnaturally serves
agribusiness at the expense of small farms. And it will shift
economies of scale, turning the balance in favor of humane farmers—as
those who run companies like Wal-Mart could do right now by taking
their business away from factory farms.

In all cases, the law would apply to corporate farmers a few simple
rules that better men would have been observing all along: we cannot
just take from these creatures, we must give them something in return.
We owe them a merciful death, and we owe them a merciful life. And
when human beings cannot do something humanely, without degrading both
the creatures and ourselves, then we should not do it at all.

(Matthew Scully served until last fall as special assistant and deputy
director of speechwriting to President George W. Bush. He is the
author of Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and
the Call to Mercy.)

"Geoff" wrote in message
...
PART TWO - The Life of a Breeding Sow
http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/
Published August 25, 2006
by Larry Parker


Whilst not wanting to encourage a spamming ****, as I am all for animal
welfare, it would help your cause if you did a little research on your
subject before subjecting Usenet to it.

The newsgroups you have posted to are predominantly if not all UK groups.
Your spam refers to the North American farm practice, not the UK and even in
your pasted text it says

"While the European Union, for
example, is in the process of phasing out gestation crates, England
and Switzerland have already banned their use entirely,"

Now you can substitute England for the UK because I doubt they know there is
a diference. So the very thing you go on about is actually banned here and
if you'd ever driven in East Anglia in this country you would know that.

So quality not quantity and target your audience better.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:23:48 +0100, "Road_Hog®"
wrote:


"Geoff" wrote in message
.. .
PART TWO - The Life of a Breeding Sow
http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/
Published August 25, 2006
by Larry Parker

Pigs, much like dogs and cats, are intelligent and responsive
creatures. One is made aware of this simply by watching them forage,
play, or socialize. For many people, pigs make wonderful pets. They
can be taught to use a litter, and they commonly enjoy a good game of
fetch, a scratch on the head, or even a soothing belly rub. Just like
dogs or cats, they're playful, affectionate, inquisitive, and
humorous.

On today's factory farms, however, pigs are prevented from exercising
any of these natural traits. They're shown no affection or compassion,
and they're provided no freedom. Here, within rows of industrial
factory buildings, the breeding sows are crowded together as closely
as possible, each in a separate metallic "gestation crate", for the
entire duration of their pregnancy - about four months. The gestation
crate is unbelievably restrictive, measuring anywhere from 18 inches
to two feet across and about seven feet long. This severe confinement
prevents the females from turning around, and barely provides enough
room to sit or lie down. When they do sit, it's without the benefit of
any straw bedding. The floor beneath their feet is slatted or grated,
thereby allowing the passage of feces and urine, but making it
difficult for the animals to stand. In their attempts to move about,
the pigs inevitably scrape and bruise themselves repeatedly on the
metal bars of their prison, and it isn't long before their bodies are
covered in lesions and tumors.

Another consequence of their imprisonment manifests itself after about
four or five pregnancies and several months of forced inactivity, as
the leg muscles of the animals become severely atrophied from disuse.
Many pigs break their legs while trying to turn around or escape,
while others simply collapse in their cages, unable to support their
own weight.

Veterinary care is rarely provided for these poor creatures, usually
only when some physical disorder threatens to halt the flow of
production. And though the pigs are constantly being pumped full of a
cornucopia of drugs such as antibiotics, hormones, and laxatives, it's
considered unnecessary to include pain relievers as part of their
diet. Denied the basic needs of exercise, fresh air, or even proper
veterinary care, the sows become vulnerable to a large number of
debilitating diseases, including anemia, influenza, cholera,
dysentery, trichinosis, orthostasis, intestinal tract infections, and
pneumonia, to name only a few. Many pigs die needlessly as a result of
these inhumane conditions. The industry, however, views their deaths,
which now occur at a rate of about 14%, as "acceptable losses".

When the sow is ready to give birth, she's moved to another equally
restrictive confinement device known as a "farrowing crate". Here
she'll give birth to and wean her young. In a natural unrestricted
environment the duration of this nursing period varies from 13 to 17
weeks. On the factory farm, however, the piglets are snatched away
after just 3 weeks. The mother is immediately re-impregnated, and then
herded or dragged back to the gestation crate to begin the process all
over again.

After anywhere from three to five years of these forced cyclical
pregnancies, the pig reaches a point where she's considered to be no
longer productive. The money machine has run dry, and at this time,
she'll be afforded the only mercy she's ever known - death!

But only if she's very lucky will even her death be executed in a
merciful fashion.

The "long walk" to slaughter begins with the pigs being herded into
large slaughterhouse trucks. This is typically accomplished by
electrical prodding, dragging with chains, or oftentimes by pushing
them en masse using a tractor or forklift. Not surprisingly, many of
the pigs suffer bruises, torn ligaments, and broken limbs. With
complete disregard for their pain, these injury victims are simply
pushed into the truck with the rest. Then begins the transport itself
which can last as long as 50 or 60 hours [update]. During this time,
the pigs are unlikely to receive food, water, or even relief from
their cramped quarters. Squeezed together as tightly as possible,
they're kept imprisoned in the truck during the entire journey. Many
will die en route from hunger, suffocation, or extreme heat.

Though there are currently no federal regulations which can protect
the animals during their stay on the factory farm, there are laws on
the books which are designed to guarantee them a swift and humane
death. Poorly enforced, however, these laws are all too commonly
abused or simply ignored for the sake of a speedier and more efficient
process. And so the suffering continues right up to the very end!

And what of the offspring?

After being removed from their mothers, the piglets are pushed into
overcrowded pens with bare metal, concrete, or fiberglass floors.
Again, no straw or other form of bedding is provided, and under these
stressful conditions, the piglets often resort to tail-biting. The
industry's solution to this, rather than providing a more relaxed or
comfortable environment, is to perform a surgical technique on the
piglets known as tail-docking (amputating the tail using either
pliers, scissors, or a knife). As an added measure, it's also common
practice to cut the front teeth (again using pliers). Both of these
procedures, not to mention castration, which all the males must
undergo, involve very sensitive areas of the pig's anatomy, and yet
rarely are they performed by a qualified veterinarian or with the
benefit of pain relievers.

After five or six months of being confined in these crowded pens, the
piglets are then shipped off to be processed, packed into waiting
trucks by workers who wear earplugs to muffle the cacophony of screams
and cries. The males, having been fattened during this period, are
sent directly to slaughter, while the females selected for breeding
are introduced to the prisons in which they'll spend the rest of their
lives.

Possibly the most heart-rendering aspect of this entire tragedy is the
psychological impact that a life devoid of any comfort or joy has on
the pigs. For starters, one is most struck by reports which relate how
the mere presence of any human entering the sow pen causes the
creatures to break out instantaneously in waves of squealing and
roaring, violently rattling their cages like beings possessed. Their
fear must be unimaginable. Add to this the commonly experienced
disorders such as chronic stress, depression, frustration, and
aggression. But most disturbing of all are the abnormal repetitive
movements known as stereotypies: waving their heads from side to side,
chewing on thin air, repeatedly biting on or rubbing their snouts
across the bars of their cages, imaginary nest-building with straw
that doesn't exist. Some of the animals, apparently unable to bear
their agony any longer, simply lay motionless, their minds shattered,
their spirits broken.

This then is the life of a sow on the factory farm. A shining
testament to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of man.

It's estimated that at any given time the number of breeding sows
being kept in gestation crates in this country is about 4 million. The
typical factory farm houses anywhere from 3,000 to 50,000 pigs, while
the largest of these facilities is known to hold up to 1.2 million.
Global statistics are even more staggering, where it should be noted
that as of September, 2005, factory farming operations accounted for
more than 40% of the world's total meat production - an increase of
10% over the previous year.

In spite of the seemingly impossible odds which these facts represent,
it's my belief that with time and dedication, the battle to save and
protect these animals can still be won. While the European Union, for
example, is in the process of phasing out gestation crates, England
and Switzerland have already banned their use entirely, as well as a
number of other cruel practices. Isn't it far past time for the United
States to follow suit? As citizens and stewards of this nation,
shouldn't we insist that our government take the steps necessary to
deliver millions of innocent creatures from the suffering they now
endure?


Next Time: Now That You're Here, Take a Look Around

Whilst not wanting to encourage a spamming ****,

But as an attention seeking troll, you will?

as I am all for animal
welfare, it would help your cause if you did a little research on your
subject before subjecting Usenet to it.

The newsgroups you have posted to are predominantly if not all UK groups.
Your spam refers to the North American farm practice, not the UK and even in
your pasted text it says

"While the European Union, for
example, is in the process of phasing out gestation crates, England
and Switzerland have already banned their use entirely,"

Now you can substitute England for the UK because I doubt they know there is
a diference. So the very thing you go on about is actually banned here and
if you'd ever driven in East Anglia in this country you would know that.

So quality not quantity and target your audience better.


I thought the Internet was a global medium! I want to know what's
happening all over the planet, not just in a small pocket of nothing.

You might be narrow minded. Thankfully most of us are not.

"Geoff" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:23:48 +0100, "Road_Hog®"
wrote:


"Geoff" wrote in message
. ..
PART TWO - The Life of a Breeding Sow
http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/
Published August 25, 2006
by Larry Parker


I thought the Internet was a global medium! I want to know what's
happening all over the planet, not just in a small pocket of nothing.

Then read newspapers, watch news TV channels and specific websites to keep
yourself updated.

Quite frankly, I find that comment a bit rich, coming from one of the
countries with the most insular population I know.


You might be narrow minded. Thankfully most of us are not.

It is a global medium, but you're in a UK newsgroup which is specifically
targeted to UK issues.

And the title is Part Two - The life of a Breeding Sow, and goes on to tell
us a lot about nothing, which is not relevant to this newsgroup or the UK.

Perhaps if you titled it "What happens to Pigs in the country that gave you
McDonalds and all that other junk food" we would have gathered straight away
what it was about and the harsh methods of animal farming required to give
you the 49c hamburger.

I have just commenced Birdwatching and thought this would be a good place to
learn something.

I have, I have learnt that Usenet is spolit by these cross posts. Thank
goodness for the Block Sender facility.


"Road_Hog®" wrote in message
...

"Geoff" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:23:48 +0100, "Road_Hog®"
wrote:


"Geoff" wrote in message
...
PART TWO - The Life of a Breeding Sow
http://vanguardpublications.blogspot.com/
Published August 25, 2006
by Larry Parker


I thought the Internet was a global medium! I want to know what's
happening all over the planet, not just in a small pocket of nothing.

Then read newspapers, watch news TV channels and specific websites to keep
yourself updated.

Quite frankly, I find that comment a bit rich, coming from one of the
countries with the most insular population I know.


You might be narrow minded. Thankfully most of us are not.

It is a global medium, but you're in a UK newsgroup which is specifically
targeted to UK issues.

And the title is Part Two - The life of a Breeding Sow, and goes on to
tell us a lot about nothing, which is not relevant to this newsgroup or
the UK.

Perhaps if you titled it "What happens to Pigs in the country that gave
you McDonalds and all that other junk food" we would have gathered
straight away what it was about and the harsh methods of animal farming
required to give you the 49c hamburger.