Pigs and Piglets

In this section I will discuss how pigs and piglets are factory farmed • I will discuss some of the living environment conditions in the pig factories. o The pigs are packed and crowded into giant warehouses. o This causes great stress to the pigs. o There is unnatural flooring and lack of exercise. ▪ This causes obesity and crippling leg disorders. o They live in a deprived environment. ▪ This causes neurotic coping behaviors, like bar biting and sham chewing. o The unhealthy air, pigs being confined too closely together, and pigs standing in their own waste all day leads to these diseases: ▪ They can develop porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), swine influenza virus (SIV), and salmonellosis. • I will discuss some of the practices taken for pigs to be factory farmed. o A female pig undergoes a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth. ▪ Each female has twenty or more piglets a year. ▪ After only two to three weeks of the piglets being born, they are taken away to be fattened. o When female pigs can no longer have piglets, they too are sent to be slaughtered. o Every part of the pig is useable, even the brains. ▪ There are pig-brain machines, where a pig’s head is put in the machine and the brains blow up into a bucket.

“Factory Pork Production.” Factory Farming. Web. 24 October 2011.

Dairy and Veal Cows

In this section I will discuss how dairy and veal cows are factory farmed. ▪ I will discuss the diet of factory farmed dairy cows. o Being that the cow needs to produce abnormal amounts of milk, the normal diet would not help. Cows are put on diets of high energy feeds. These feeds in return cause certain diseases. ▪ It causes ketosis, which is mostly characterized by anorexia and depression, and laminitis, a condition where it is very painful to walk. ▪ I will discuss the diseases and physical burdens that the dairy cows encounter within a factory farmed setting. o One of the diseases that occur prominently is called mastitis and it is a bacterial infection of their udders. There is a council that is specifically developed to combat this particular disease. o A cow’s gestation period is just as long as humans, nine months. In a factory farmed setting the cow is asked to have a baby every year. This puts a lot of stress on the body. Upon birth, the cow is then put under more stress and is forced to produce ten times the amount of milk that it would naturally produce. By three or four years, the cows are slaughtered and used