Animal Suffering Term paper

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When you go out to eat and look at your thick and juicy T-bone steak what

do you think about? When you look at that gorgeous mink coat in the department

store what is going through your mind? When you here that cigarette smoke causes

cancer in lab animals what is the first thing that comes to mind? Chances are

that in each of these cases you were not thinking about how the cow suffered

while it was being fattened up, ho painful the trap was that caught those mink,

or the conditions those lab animals hat to endure to develop that cancer. Most

people do not think about these things. However, in this paper, you will be

enlightened on the pain and suffering of animals in three different industries

and you will also hear from the other side of this issue. First, one of the

biggest culprits of animal suffering is the animal food industry. This is an

industry in which people have a tendency to block out or ignore the animal

mistreatment; this is done by disassociating oneself with the direct harm and

ignoring the indirect harm (Harnack 133). A good start under this example in the

case of pigs. Normally, pigs are intelligent animals capable of showing

affection. They have very good senses of smell, which is why pigs have been used

as hunting animals (Coats 31). This normal behavior is disrupted however in the

food industry. Pigs are taken to slaughter at about twenty-four weeks of age

when they are approximately 220 pounds (Coats 32). Pigs are usually mass-caged

into groups that consist of other pigs of the same sex and age. This can cause

excessive aggressiveness in the animals due to the stifling of the natural

social orders, which are accomplished though mixing (Coats 33). Due to

inactivity in cages, pigs become “bored” and do things such as gnaw on the

bars of the cage or on the body parts of other pigs. Factory owners attempt to

remedy this by doing things such as cutting off a piglet’s tail shortly after

being born (Coats 33). There is also gender specific cruelty. To reduce

aggressiveness, male pigs are castrated. Most of the time, this is done without

anesthetic. This is a practice seen in other divisions of the farm industry as

well (Coats 33). “A factory breeding sow [pig] averages two and a half litters

a year and ten litters in a life time. With ten or eleven piglets per litter,

she brings 100-110 piglets into the systems during the first four to five years

of her life” (Coats 34). The pig factory owners try to get the greatest amount

of piglets in the least amount of time. They do this by trying to find the

optimum amount of time to leave a piglet with his mother. The later a piglet is

weaned away from his mother, the better chance it will live, however this is

time that the mother is not pregnant (Coats 34). Pigs confined in cages in

factories have a high rate of disease and physical problems that range from

respiratory diseases to lame and broken legs (Coats 45). Next, we have cows.

Cows have the “opportunity” to go into three different division of the

farming industry: dairy cow, veal calf, or beef cow (Coats 7). Firstly,

concerning milk cows, the only time that a female cow produces milk is after she

has had a calf, and she only produces for as long as the calf suckles (Coats

50). To keep the cows producing milk, they must be impregnated about once a year

and give birth (Coats 56). While a calf is still getting milk from its mother,

it drinks small quantities about twenty times a day. The cow replenishes itself

as needed. In the dairy farm, a cow is “sucked dry” approximately two to

three times per day. This forces a cow to be over loaded and weighed down with

milk (Coats 50-51). When an exceptional cow is found, she is put aside for

breeding. She is given drugs to induce the production of more eggs. These eggs

are fertilized with the sperm of “super-bulls” and the embryos are implanted

into different cows. This can cause problems if the calf implanted is larger

than the mother can bear (Coats 56-57). Secondly, under cows, we have the veal

calf. The main resource for veal calves is the calves of dairy cows (Coats 61).

According to David Coats, “The concept is simple yet very cruel; from birth,

calves are kept in solitary confinement in small wooden crates, deprived of

mobility” (62). The diet of a veal calf consists of little iron and fiber but

contains a high concentration of growth stimulant, starch fats, sugars, etc.

This is the only food given; no water is allowed. This diet makes the flesh of

the calf very pale which is optimum (Coats 64). Veal calves are killed about

four months into their life. If the calves were kept longer, they would die due

to their deprived diet and psychological problems (Coats 62). Lastly, we have

the beef cow. The beef industry is about a thirty billion dollar a year industry

in the U.S. (Coats 69). “In 1986, the average American consumed 78 pounds of

beef, accounting for 7% of supermarket sales” (Coats 69). Beef cattle, unlike

other farm animals are not packed into cages, because they produce nothing until

they are taken to slaughter (Coats 71). Beef cattle are “out on the range”

at the start of their lives. At about the last 100 days of life the cattle are

taken into feedlots where they are crowded together and have no room to move

(Coats 71-72). “It used to take three years for a calf to become an adult of

sellable weight—now, with new finishing techniques, calves are pushed from

birth through to slaughter in just ten to eleven month”(Coats 72). When cattle

are put into feedlots, they are separated into same age and sex. This causes

problems similar to pigs when put in the same position. They...

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Coats
C. David. Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm: The Myth of the Traditional Farm and
the Shocking Truth about Animal Suffering in Today’s Agribusiness. New York:
Continuum, 1989. Harnack, Andrew, ed. Animal Rights: Opposing Viewpoints. Sand
Diego: Greenhaven, 1996. Fox, W. Michael. Inhumane Society: The American Way of
Exploiting Animals. New York: St Martin’s, 1990. King James Bible. Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1970. Rohr, Janelle, ed. Animal
Rights: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1989.
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