ABSTRACT
Many people who become vegetarians do so first out of a concern for the welfare of factory farmed animals. “Factory farming” refers to production that employs high stocking density, which deprives animals of the opportunity for even minimal movement and causes many animals to engage in self-mutilating behavior and to attack nearby animals. Controlling such harmful behaviors involves further cruel tactics such as debeaking chickens and clipping pigs’ teeth without the use of anesthesia. Breeding for extremely fast growth rates and high meat productivity, along with poor nutrition, results in animals that are extremely unhealthy and often die of heart, liver, or lung failure, well before they are big enough to be slaughtered. “Broiler” chickens are bred to be so top-heavy that, sometimes, they literally cannot walk a step, and will die of dehydration because they cannot reach water a few inches a way. Thus, a daily part of the factory farmer’s routine is culling the dead from their stock. I could go on, but I will simply assume this is enough to establish that factory farming involves the wrongful treatment of non-human animals.
