Blog Four: Farm to Fridge

In the video "Farm to Fridge", Mercy for Animals takes us behind the scenes of what happens at slaughterhouses, so we may experience the horrors that animals being raised and slaughtered under a factory farm atmosphere have to to suffer through. Pigs, cattle, and poultry including turkeys are all denied basic natural needs, they don't have enough space to live in, they hardly see the light of day, never mind have the right to a decent and painless death.
Poultry, chickens in specific, are destined for cruel deaths regardless of gender. Males are brought to their deaths within hours of birth, from grinders to suffocation, their lack of growth and inability to lay eggs makes them unprofitable and therefore useless. Females are subjected to abuses for much longer. Their breaks are sawed off using heat blades ( without any anesthetic) which can cause acute to chronic pain. When ready to be slaughtered, they are hung upside down from shackles by their fragile legs and out through a hot bath that leaves them paralyzed, a blade then cuts their necks and lets blood pour out of their bodies.
Dairy cows suffer through mutilations and amputations without pain killers as well. Their living conditions are terrible, Diseases run rampant in dirty, confined factory farms. Calves are taken away from their mothers and killed so humans could have milk. Spent dairy cows are sent to slaughter early in their lives once they can't produce anymore milk. Unreliable stunning practices at slaughterhouses cause cows to have their necks cut and limbs cut off while still alive and conscious.
Pigs have gestation creates only barely large enough to hold their bodies. Once piglets are born they are castrated, again without pain killers. If piglets are too weak to survive or take too long to grow they are killed by slamming their heads on the floor. Once pigs are market weight, they are hung upside down and have their throats slit. Improper stunning cause pigs to have throats cut while still conscious.
All of these abuses are horrific, all these animals are degraded, and for what, only our food? It is not necessary for these animals to be treated in this manner. They are living creatures, and if they are raised to provide us nutrition, we should strive to give them the best quality is life possible. This video can help my video project by giving us information about factory farming we didn't know, and can now pass down to the students we will be surveying. Specifically, in my group, we can include these methods of slaughter as being part of the "processing" process. And what it would take to make this food to be considered organic and ultimately safe for everyone.