The Beef on Factory Farming

730 Words3 Pages
So where did that steak that you ate for dinner last night really come from? Have you ever thought about it? What about the bacon and eggs you ate for breakfast? Well I'll tell you where it comes from, factory farms. Maybe you're asking your self "Why does it matter, it's dead anyway." Well, I'll tell you why factory farming is such a huge problem. Its things like animal cruelty, mass pollution, the destruction of communities, and antibiotic resistant bacteria that are damaging the world around us. On factory farms animals are looked at as units of production, not as living things. They are overcrowded indoors in unsanitary conditions. The ammonia and other gases from their manure irritate the animals’ lungs and make them sick. Did you know that 80% of pigs have pneumonia upon slaughter? Thirty six million cattle are raised to provide the U.S. with beef for a single year. Furthermore, most animals are keeps in stalls so small that they cannot even turn around and they are forced to stand in their own feces, because their stalls are never cleaned. Other cruel practices, such as debeaking chickens, are also preformed. It is because of these crowed and unsanitary conditions on factory farms, every animal is feed a low dose of antibiotics in their feed just to keep them alive. They are also fed hormones which are used to make the animals grow fast, produce more milk, eggs, etc. This is contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistant germs in humans. Resistant bacteria infections have caused health care costs to increase by an estimated $4 billion per year in the Untied States. Furthermore, every year approximately 25 million pounds of antibiotics and related drugs were administered to animals on factory farms. This is over eight times the amount used in treating humans. Have you heard of the company Perdue? They claim that they have the
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