Planet Vegan: pigs are confined for six years at a time and “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out.

Vegans for World Peace

Our food system is inefficient, cruel and we are wasting our resources. We will run out of clean water, deplete the soil of nutrients and collapse the ecosystem. We are destroying the tropical rainforest, the lungs of the planet, and home to millions (if not trillions) of species of life forms that took millions of years of evolution to create. We are growing food on this land to feed the animals we eat (for the most part.) We are creating mass extinction and we are not immune to extinction ourselves as we are dealing in a land of finite resources. Humans are starving right now because we choose to feed their food to the animals we eat. Approx. 50,000 litres of drinking water goes into producing 1 kilo of beef or a gallon of milk. It takes approximately 10 times more grain to feed a "food" animal to eat it than it does to just feed the grain directly to the human being. We can feed 7 billion humans much more efficiently than 100 billion or more land animals. And we are ignoring our moral obligation to protect innocent animals and people who cannot protect themselves. Yes animals in the wild eat flesh but they do not breed in captivity and confine their prey to spaces indoors without space enough to turn around or be comfortable at all during the entire life. These animals are living a life of torture. No wild animal is so cruel to abuse, torture, confine, neglect, overcrowd, beat, cram in cages so small they never move, allow them no exercise, no sunshine, EVER, no movement even! Cut up into pieces while conscious, skin them alive, boil alive, etc etc etc This is common the world over. 100 billion a year we slaughter!!!!! and we kill another 1-3 trillion in the oceans. Non human animals are not capable of cultivating plant crops, however we are. We do not need animal products to survive. Some animals do need other animals to survive we are not one of them - many have proven this. Our intestines are long like herbivores and we have a back up emergency system we are abusing. Animal protein and fat creates disease in our body where plant food does not. We can derive all we need from plants and bacteria, rather than have the animals process this for us. If we focus on feeding the people directly we stop the torture and slaughter. If you eat meat dairy or eggs and you watch how the pigs, cows, chickens, farmed fish etc live you, will see they suffer immensely. When we take from the oceans we risk the lives of the sharks and whales who are essential to the ocean ecosystem. We need to keep it in balance. And the taste for flesh is not worth mass suffering beyond comprehension. We can learn to eat the plants. If you don't have the stomach to watch these videos on how the "food" animals live - it is because you already know it is creating suffering for them. Please stop supporting animal cruelty immediately! We can eat if we grow food for us rather than the animals we breed into existence to consume. We threaten the wildlife when we farm the land to grow the animal food. There is enough food for everyone but not enough to feed and care properly for so many animals! Every social issue is solved by going to a plant based diet and provides a tangible way of knowing who is cruel and who believes all life is sacred. The torture can stop but it takes each and every one of us to make it happen. Violence is a choice. Please stop contributing to lifetimes of starvation, torture, confinement, abuse, and slaughter. Please stop! Let us instead worship all life, not just our own. Let's love and worship instead of destroy, torture, and exploit ok?! Please! We can do this! And we will be better for it!

Monday, December 31, 2012

pigs are confined for six years at a time and “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out.

On 2012-12-26, at 9:47 AM, "Kate Hendrickson (PETA Foundation)" <KateH@petaf.org> wrote:

Dear Diana,

We share your concern about cruel gestation crates. Nearly 6 million pregnant or nursing pigs in the United States are currently imprisoned in these tiny, filthy, barren enclosures—often for up to six years—which are designed to make it impossible for them to move at all during pregnancy and nursing. Because of the overwhelming proof that pigs suffer greatly from this intense confinement and deprivation, the use of these crates has already been banned in the European Union and in Florida, Arizona, and California.

Most people never see pigs who are raised for food—aside from the occasional glimpses of them as they go by on the transport trucks. This is because 97 percent of pigs in America today spend their entire lives confined on factory farms. While the transport conditions are cruel, they are merely a small part of a hideous existence for these animals.

Piglets are taken from their mothers soon after birth and subjected to heinous mutilations: Their tails are cut off, their teeth are cut down, and males have their testicles ripped out of their scrotums, all without any pain relief. They are then confined to filthy pens in crowded warehouses, and they are under constant stress from the intense confinement. They are denied everything that is natural to them.

Most of these pigs never see the sun or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for the slaughterhouse. To get the terrified pigs onto the trucks, workers beat them on their sensitive noses and backs or stick electric prods in their rectums. Crammed into 18-wheelers, pigs are transported over many miles without food and water through all weather extremes. A former pig transporter told PETA that pigs are “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out.” Although according to industry reports, more than 100,000 pigs die in transport each year, and more than 400,000 are crippled by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse, pigs still have no legal protection during transport to slaughter. Sick and injured animals—or “downer” pigs as the industry calls them—are kicked, struck with electric prods, and dragged off the trucks to their deaths. On the killing floor, the pigs’ throats will be cut open, often while they are still completely conscious and struggling to escape. . . .Many are still alive when they reach the scalding hair-removal water bath where they are scalded to death.

The laws governing the treatment of farmed animals during transportation—and, indeed, throughout their lives—are woefully inadequate. On the federal level, the "Twenty-eight Hour Law of 1877" covers the transport of all animals, including farmed animals. The law states that animals cannot be carried by "rail carrier, express carrier or common carrier" for more than 28 hours without breaks of at least five hours for rest, water and food. The law does not apply to water- and air-based methods of transport, and there are some exemptions for certain species of animals. Beyond that, there is little to govern the conditions of animals in trucks or rail cars, beyond some state statutes.

The plight of these pigs may seem hopeless, but you can help. Write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines about the cruelty you witnessed—or any time you see an article about the meat industry or local farms. Let everyone know that if they are eating meat, they are supporting cruelty. For information to include in your letters, please visit http://www.PETA.org/issues/Animals-Used-For-Food/default.aspx. For letter-writing tips, see http://www.PETA.org/action/activism-guide/letter-writing.aspx. Please also encourage people you know to become vegetarian if you are not doing so already; each vegetarian saves more than 100 animals a year, so talking to your friends and family about the issues surrounding the meat industry can make a huge impact.

For a free vegetarian starter kit, please visit http://www.PETA.org/living/vegetarian-living/free-vegetarian-starter-kit.aspx.

Thank you again for contacting PETA. We appreciate your compassion for animals and all that you do to help them.

Sincerely,

Kate Hendrickson

Membership Correspondent

PETA Foundation

www.PETA.org

Sign this petition and pass it on please! http://www.change.org/petitions/canadian-government-ban-factory-farming