Factory Farming: Do you know what you're eating?

Cheaper means crueler.

Think about that the next time you’re browsing the meat aisles at your local supermarket.

Animals Australia are running a new campaign that aims to educate Australians on the realities of animal cruelty in this country. They say most Australians don’t know that the majority of pork, chicken and egg products they eat are actually produced in factory farms – where animals are bred in small dark cages and are almost immobilized.

They want people to know that cheap meat comes at a cost to animal welfare. And it’s consumer choice that will drive change.

Vote with your wallets, people. And take a look at this video:

Mamamia’s former news editor Rick Morton put together this cheat sheet all about factory farming in Australia. If you want the details on where your produce is coming from and how it got there, this is your place. (More information on this issue, including responses from the Farmer’s Federation to each of these claims is available here.)

Part of the advertising campaign from Voiceless to raise awareness about the realities of factory farming in Australia

Dairy calves

There’s a darker side to milk. Dairy cows are kept in a state of near-constant pregnancy, that they might produce the milk we’re used to having with our cereal. But the ‘poddy calves’ or ‘bobby calves’ are surplus to requirements and some 700,000 are destroyed each year and sold for meat. That would be the veal some of us love to order at restaurants.

The calves are taken from their mothers after a day and trucked away, sometimes going without food for a day at a time. Then they are slaughtered.

Beef Cattle

Cattle are generally raised free-to-roam on large slabs of land in Australia, but associated animal husbandry practices are not always humane. The RSPCA says fire branding (hot pokers that are pushed into the rump of the beast) is an ‘unacceptable’ form of branding but this does not mean it doesn’t happen.

Australia’s huge geography means that most welfare problems for beef cattle arise in their transport to abattoirs and conditions before and during slaughter. The animals are held in feedlots before slaughter which are far more confined and can stress cattle out if they are handled incorrectly, not fed properly or exposed to extreme heat and weather. Feedlots make up between 30 and 40% of the beef market.

Chickens

Industry chickens are bred for two reasons and two reasons only. For their eggs, or for their meat.

Battery hens, the machine-line egg producers, are almost universally assured a life without sunlight or open spaces. Many are kept in cages four-apiece with less than an A4 sized piece of paper to live in, according to welfare groups. There are 11 million of these battery hens in Australia.

As many as one in six live with broken bones as their cage conditions weaken their skeletons. When their egg laying rate inevitably slows, the hens are disposed of, around the age of 18 months. Male chicks don’t even make it that far. They are gassed or otherwise ‘ground up’ when they are born.

Meat chickens are a slightly different story. There are more than 400 million in Australia, raised to stack on the meat at three times their usual growth rate and slaughtered at five weeks. The forced weight-gain often results in the animals being crippled under the strain, or breaking bones altogether.

Pigs and factory farming. This is what it looks like.

Pigs

Pigs have the intelligence of a toddler many are subjected to factory farming where they are given no room to move and, you know, be pigs. Piglets have their teeth cut or filed back to ‘prevent damage’ to the sows from which they suckle. Those same sows are confined to tiny spaces for 16 weeks, unable to turn around or make themselves comfortable. When pregnant they are moved to an even smaller farrowing crate, immediately before giving birth.

Kangaroos

Kangaroos are shot and killed in huge numbers for their meat and skins, but not always ‘humanely’ as is required by the industry code of practice. As many as four cent are not killed with a head-shot as required and there are no figures to suggest how many are maimed and survive.
What do you think? How much do you think about where your food comes from, do you care? Or is ignorance bliss?

Tags:

Top Comments

futtubthoks 12 years ago

A picture can identify many words and history has both been made and preserved, through the art of photography. Anyone can bring about this brilliant legacy of photography. It just takes a good eye plus some bits of knowledge so it will be all get together. Take notice of the the information in the following paragraphs and you need to find something which benefits you.

Meeting up and joining with fellow photographers is a wonderful way to hone your craft. Consider it: Everyone meets up inside a vocation this way, from cyclists to soccer players. It's only natural that photographers group together. Holding friendly little competitions and exploring the world together can enhance your skills.

Be creative when composing your shots. Photography is all about the visual effect of your shots. If it's a mundane item inside a cluttered background, chances are good that no person will care to consider your photo. Learn how to build a good photo, then take those skills and apply these people to your own personal creative ideas.

Create the perfect photo! There is no such thing as having a great shot, if you do not just are actually at the right spot in the best time. For many the remainder of the times, great images need to be made by you, the photographer. Spend some time to set-in the images that you would like to shoot.

There are some shots that you don't need to get the most detail and and then there are shots were your photo's success is completely reliant on crisp and clear details. Facing the latter, try cutting your ISO setting. This will provide you with one of the most detail inside your shots.

While talent is surely an important factor in taking excellent photographs, there may be quite a bit of learned technique that goes into it too. Learning the newest techniques with a decent camera and practicing them repeatedly, should mention your confidence level. Understanding how to take great pictures may become much more rewarding.

BeftTerce 12 years ago

Golf is actually a sport of patience and finesse. Golfers must coordinate their hands and eyes to hit the ball from the perfect spot about the green. The greater a golfer becomes, the greater number of their putting and driving skills increase. The advice on this page will help you turn into a better golf player.

Do your best to hook your wedges. You want to try and have more consistent shots. A wonderful way to find some good consistency with the wedge shots is usually to learn a medium-height draw that goes forward since it lands into the green and rolls about ten feet forward.

In case you are just from the green although the grass is too long to try a putt, try using a 7 or 8 iron to do a basic chip towards the hole. Utilizing the same technique you might use for any putt, a smooth stroke with a 7 or 8 iron will raise your ball just past the edge of the rough and fringe and after that allow it to roll smoothly around the green toward the hole.

Sign up to some literature handling golf. Various PGA magazines, shopping magazines, along with other things such as newsletters can help you stay in addition to the sport on the whole. Being a fan of golf and knowing what's happening inside the sport can help keep you motivated and happy to boost your game.

With a lot of courses today providing the technology of GPS on his or her golf carts, make sure you make the most of what this handy measurement device are capable of doing. Whether providing you with the distance from tee to hazard off from the centre of the fairway for the green, use GPS to hone in your distance.

As said before at the beginning with this article, golf is a pleasurable activity that folks across the world enjoy participating in. Regardless if you are a beginner or perhaps expert, learning more about the video game of golf will do simply help your overall game. Use this advice the next time you might be around the green and you can find great success!