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This is the class blog for Phil 3377, Animal Rights, at SMU. Visit often to find material presented during class, including lecture notes, visuals, links to videos, etc.

10.06.2026

Animals as Food (factory farming)

Animals as food module

  1. Factual background (today)
  2. A simple argument for vegetarianism (Friday)
  3. 3 defenses of meat eating
    • inefficacy
    • humane farming + existence
    • freegan
  4. State fair and rodeo


Statistics
  • About 10 billion land animals die annually in food production in the US (2021 USDA figures)
  • 218 million are killed in the US by hunters, in animal shelters, research, product testing, dissection, and fur farms -- 2% of total killed (2001 source)
  • About 80 billion land animals die annually in food production worldwide
  • More numbers
Types of farming
  1. Factory farming/CAFO -- confined animal feeding operation--this post
    • animals grown in factory-like conditions
    • indoors, very little space
    • highly automated
    • most animal products in the US, spreading to other countries
  2. Factory farming + reforms (here)
  3. Humane farming (here)

Animal welfare issues (below) vs. environmental issues



Content alert -- a few brief videos with disturbing images -- close eyes if necessary!


FACTORY FARMING

Turkey 




  1. Bred to be huge, can't support weight
  2. Broad breasted, can't reproduce naturally
  3. Sores
  4. Crowding, fighting
  5. Method of killing after avian flu


Turkey farmer video

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Laying Hens (for eggs)




Issues
  1. crowding (each chicken has less space than a piece of typing paper) 
  2. debeaking
  3. male chicks immediately killed (wikipedia: chick culling)
  4. short lives
Glass Walls (PETA) -- watch 1:51 - 3:30

Wikipedia, poultry farming

Looking down into a dumpster - discarded male chicks


    Broiler Chickens (for meat)



    Animal welfare issues
    1. crowding (20,000 per barn) 
    2. debeaking, ammonia fumes
    3. collapsing under own weight
    4. very short lives (5-7 weeks vs. many years)  

    poultry farm images



    Farm sanctuary




    Pigs (for pork, ham, bacon)



    Animal welfare issues
    1. crowding 
    2. tail-docking -- notice that the pigs in the pictures have no tails! 
    3. ammonia fumes, no straw
    4. short lives (life cycle of a market pig) -- 6 months (vs. 15-20 yrs)
    5. pregnancy
    • artificial insemination 
    • sow crates (for pregnant pigs) -- 114 days
    • farrowing crates (for birthing and lactating pigs) -- 21 days
    • sow impregnated again 

    Gestation crates (wikipedia)

    Farrowing crate -- By Alisha Vargas from Reno, NV, US - Piglets Nursing,
     CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6498410

           


    Beef Cattle


    Animal welfare issues
    1. castration, branding, dehorning  
    2. live on range until 8 months old, BUT then sent to feedlot for several months
    3. at feedlot: fed corn diet, antibiotics, hormones to promote quick weight gain
    More info:  Power Steer (Michael Pollan, NYT)



    Dairy Cows


    Animal welfare issues
    1. cows impregnated once a year (artificial insemination)
    2. separated from calf after a few weeks (see calf hutches here) 
    3. BST (increases milk production), mastitis
    4. What happens to the males? become veal, beef
    5. read about sexed semen





    Slaughter 
        
            Slaughter of pigs, cattle (USDA regulated) -
    • Rough handling 
    • Transported on hot, crowded trucks
    • Animals shot in head with stun gun, lose consciousness (ideally)
    • Hoisted upside-down, throats slit, bled
    • Animals killed at a rate of 400 per hour
    • Temple Grandin reforms: more auditing, curved chute
    • Problem of error -- Nicholas Kristof article (NYT)

    Slaughter of chickens (minimally regulated)

      • thrown on trucks, long trip, no water
      • shackled upside down, dragged through electrified water, throats slit