Inside the factory farms

Scientific proof that farmed animals experience emotions, from pleasure to suffering, is already recognized by the European Union.

Yet factory farmers continue to cage or tether millions of animals in barren conditions, treating them as machines in a production line.

Organic farmers keep farm animals according to the ‘five freedoms’, a set of science-based farming principles set out by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council:

Freedom from hunger and thirst.
Freedom from discomfort.
Freedom from pain, injury or disease.
Freedom to express normal behaviour.
Freedom from fear and distress.

Factory farmed animals experience none of these. Unremitting suffering is an ingredient of all factory farmed meat and dairy products.

How do factory farms produce eggs?

Intensive egg production, Colombia
© WSPA

More than 97% of the eggs produced in Canada come from hens kept in small barren battery cages. Typically 4-6 birds are crammed into one gate with no room to rurn around or stretch their wings. In order to move, they must trade places. They are not able to nest, perch, peck, scratch, or behave naturally, causing immense stress and frustration. This can cause hens to peck each other, sometimes to death.

The industry's solution to aggression between hens is to painfully sever their beaks with a red-hot blade. Adding to the pain is the loss of feathers, bruising and abrasions from constantly rubbing against the cage and each other. Their bones become weak from the lack of exercise and calcium depletion from producing so many eggs.

Hens live in these cages until they can no longer produce eggs 'efficiently' (approximately 18 months) or until their bones become too brittle and their bodies too weak to stand up any longer. The 'spent hens' are then sent off to slaughter for low-grade chicken products, since their bodies are too bruised and battered to be sold as whole chicken meat.

What about bacon?

Over 1,440,000 sows (female breeding pigs) are raised in Canada each year - the vast majority in stalls measuring approximately 7ft by 2ft. The stalls are so narrow the sow cannot turn around.

She suffers from weak bones, wasted muscles, heart damage and excruciating cuts and abrasions. Poor air quality causes lung infections and other respiratory problems.

Pigs that are raised for porl are kept indoors in overcrowded, filthy pens with concrete or slatted floors. There is often little natural light.

Prevented from behaving normally, the pigs often resort to tail biting and ear chewing.

Factory farmers respond with tooth-clipping and tail-docking, mutilations which are usually carried out without anesthetic and often lead to prolonged pain.

All this pain is avoidable

There are clear alternatives to factory farming. WSPA’s Model Farm Project offers a practical demonstration of cruelty-free and cost-effective farming practices.

You can help WSPA end factory farming by choosing free-range or organic food.

You can help make a difference

Ask your city council to switch to cage-free eggs at municipal facilities.
If you have a cafeteria at your school or work place, ask your food services manager to switch to cage-free eggs.
Encourage your local grocer and restaurants to switch to cage-free eggs. Use customer comment cards and helplines to tell them you care about farm animal welfare.
Contact us for sample letters and to order free copies of our brochures to distribute. Together we can get more municipalities, schools and companies to go cage-free.