CAFO or Concentrated Animal Feed Organizations
Pictures speak louder then words
Many states have been drawn to CAFO's or Concentrated Animal Feed Organization instead of family farms some states have even made family farming illegal by no longer allowing pigs to be bought, sold or even owned by anyone other than a CAFO.
On these CAFO "farm's" (if they can even be called that) there are thousands of animals in a very small area. There is no grazing, no tree's in fact many of the basic thing you think of when you think farm animals are with held from these animals. The primary diet is corn which causes bloat with an end result being death by suffocation. There is also the fact that a filler in the corn based feed is dead animal. Now as far as we are aware cattle are not carnivores yet on these "farms" you have cattle eating cattle. Not to mention that a primarily corn fed diet to cows has been shown to cause E Coli (hence the rise in E Coli out brakes). Now the CAFO's are doing something to help the animals in the deplorable situations they give them antibiotics lots of antibiotics which in turn is absorbed into their milk and meat. Not to mention only increases life by a short time.
On CAFO's with dairy production is the focus the cows are artificially inseminated over and over again because cows with babies are the only ones that produce milk. Now once they give birth their babies are taken away and most are put into small boxes not allowed to stand or see the light of day. This is to keep the meat fresh and tender so they can be butchered as veal. While the mothers are milked so much that many develop wounds on their teats causing infection. In many cases this infection, puss and blood go into the milk via the pump because no one cares enough for these animals to notice. All they see is dollar signs
Then there are the poultry houses for the broilers or those that will be slaughtered there are thousands upon thousands in a single house. In almost all of these houses the windows have been blocked off not allowing any light to come through. The litter that is used on the floor to absorb the mass amounts of feces produced by so many animals in one area is labeled as dangerous with warning to not let it touch skin or eyes. This is just the beginning of the hell these poor animals have to deal with from chick to slaughter. Then there are the layers and the conditions that they are put into. Wire cage upon wire cage with beaks clipped off as to not cause damage to themselves or other chicken they might come into contact with. Even though chicken as social animals are many times caged alone.
Then we get to swine farms again many of these have closed off windows and a feces problem as is common with all CAFO's. They are housed either in runs where there is no where to lay down or turn around or they are housed with so many others that again there is no room to turn or lay down. They cut there tails off because when housed in such confined areas the tend to nip and bit off other pigs tails thus increasing the risk of infection and illness which is already extremely high.
Now please understand that this is just what we have found with our almost year long search of information pertaining to CAFO's or Concentrated Animal Feed Organization. We did not go into detail about the political pay offs these companies are giving in order to have regulations that favor what they are doing. We did not go into those in political office who are or have been part of the corporations. What we did here was hopefully get others to think about what is really going on with the food they consume. We hope that this brings awareness to the tragedy of these animals and we hope that people understand that the more CAFO's there are the less family farmer there will be. We need to support our local farmers and we need to protect the animals who feed us. The last time that we checked there were animal abuse and neglect laws why are they not applied to these corporations.
Below are some pictures of CAFO's that we got from a general google search many if not all came from an article Industrial Animal Factories by Jeff Nield Living / Green Food October 13, 2010.
On these CAFO "farm's" (if they can even be called that) there are thousands of animals in a very small area. There is no grazing, no tree's in fact many of the basic thing you think of when you think farm animals are with held from these animals. The primary diet is corn which causes bloat with an end result being death by suffocation. There is also the fact that a filler in the corn based feed is dead animal. Now as far as we are aware cattle are not carnivores yet on these "farms" you have cattle eating cattle. Not to mention that a primarily corn fed diet to cows has been shown to cause E Coli (hence the rise in E Coli out brakes). Now the CAFO's are doing something to help the animals in the deplorable situations they give them antibiotics lots of antibiotics which in turn is absorbed into their milk and meat. Not to mention only increases life by a short time.
On CAFO's with dairy production is the focus the cows are artificially inseminated over and over again because cows with babies are the only ones that produce milk. Now once they give birth their babies are taken away and most are put into small boxes not allowed to stand or see the light of day. This is to keep the meat fresh and tender so they can be butchered as veal. While the mothers are milked so much that many develop wounds on their teats causing infection. In many cases this infection, puss and blood go into the milk via the pump because no one cares enough for these animals to notice. All they see is dollar signs
Then there are the poultry houses for the broilers or those that will be slaughtered there are thousands upon thousands in a single house. In almost all of these houses the windows have been blocked off not allowing any light to come through. The litter that is used on the floor to absorb the mass amounts of feces produced by so many animals in one area is labeled as dangerous with warning to not let it touch skin or eyes. This is just the beginning of the hell these poor animals have to deal with from chick to slaughter. Then there are the layers and the conditions that they are put into. Wire cage upon wire cage with beaks clipped off as to not cause damage to themselves or other chicken they might come into contact with. Even though chicken as social animals are many times caged alone.
Then we get to swine farms again many of these have closed off windows and a feces problem as is common with all CAFO's. They are housed either in runs where there is no where to lay down or turn around or they are housed with so many others that again there is no room to turn or lay down. They cut there tails off because when housed in such confined areas the tend to nip and bit off other pigs tails thus increasing the risk of infection and illness which is already extremely high.
Now please understand that this is just what we have found with our almost year long search of information pertaining to CAFO's or Concentrated Animal Feed Organization. We did not go into detail about the political pay offs these companies are giving in order to have regulations that favor what they are doing. We did not go into those in political office who are or have been part of the corporations. What we did here was hopefully get others to think about what is really going on with the food they consume. We hope that this brings awareness to the tragedy of these animals and we hope that people understand that the more CAFO's there are the less family farmer there will be. We need to support our local farmers and we need to protect the animals who feed us. The last time that we checked there were animal abuse and neglect laws why are they not applied to these corporations.
Below are some pictures of CAFO's that we got from a general google search many if not all came from an article Industrial Animal Factories by Jeff Nield Living / Green Food October 13, 2010.