Recently, I was shocked and appalled to see images on television of chickens being stomped to death and callously smashed against a wall by workers at a poultry slaughterhouse. The individuals perpetrating this cruelty appeared completely remorseless. This intolerable conduct has been roundly criticized, but the entire incident begs the question “How could people sink to this callous inhumanity in the first place.”

Most of us want to believe that farm animals are provided with decent lives and treated with a degree of respect before being humanely slaughtered. But, modern farming practices are very different from the images most of us have in our minds, and billions of animals are exploited on U.S. farms every year. Most live in warehouses where they are treated like tools of production on the factory farm assembly line with no consideration given to the fact that they are living, feeling animals. Agribusiness’ failure to regard chickens and other farmed animals as sentient beings opens the door to the cruelty and incivility recently captured on video.

In the words of Dr. Temple Grandin, a leading livestock industry consultant, “bad has become normal” on many of today’s farms. Industrialized operations pack animals so tightly that they cannot move or engage in basic natural behaviors. Pigs used for breeding spend years in two foot wide metal cages with concrete floors. Calves slaughtered for veal live their entire lives tethered by the neck in crates, unable to walk or even turn around. Hens used for egg production are crammed into wire battery cages, which are lined up in rows and stacked in tiers in huge factory warehouses. The birds’ feathers rub off from constantly scraping against the wire walls of their cages.

Most people don’t want to think about where meat, milk and eggs come from, and when the media covers stories related to farm animals, we usually hear about things like mad cow disease or meat recalls, or about the environmental pollution caused by large scale industrialized farms. We practically never hear about the inhumane conditions under which farm animals are raised, despite the fact that such conditions often lead to the health and environmental hazards that are reported in the media. The recent news coverage surrounding the brutality at the Pilgrim’s Pride slaughterhouse in West Virginia is rare. It is time to face the facts and to demand reforms.

The brutality of factory meat production has been hidden from consumers and intolerable cruelty has become common. Shockingly, laws have been advanced by the powerful agribusiness industry to allow such cruelty. Animals raised for food are excluded from most state anti-cruelty laws, and they are excluded from the federal animal welfare act. Ironically, the only federal law addressing farm animal welfare is the humane slaughter act, and inexplicitly, it excludes poultry. In light of the egregious cruelty recently caught on tape at the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken slaughter plant, I hope members of the U.S. congress will actively move to include chickens under the humane slaughter act.

As a civilized nation we should recognize that farm animals are sentient beings, and accept that we have an ethical obligation to treat them humanely. It has been said that you can judge the moral progress of a nation by its treatment of animals. When we abuse animals, we cause unnecessary suffering, and we also denigrate ourselves.

By Mary Tyler Moore
Chair, Farm Sanctuary’s Sentient Beings Campaign