Now we all know that there has to be some law that restricts the poor handling of livestock, sort of the same law that says we cannot abuse animals. Instead, there is only a requirement that animals, such as cows, be able to walk to the slaughter house on their own, sounding a lot like walking into one’s own death. For instance, last year an undercover investigation took place at a factory that produced beef. A cow had been sick and too weak to stand up and after many tries of prodding, kicking, and jolting, the workers eventually attached a chain around the cow’s neck and dragged the unconscious animal to the kill box to be slaughtered and processed into meat. Should this unfair treatment of animals be allowed? Cows that do get through to the slaughter house are shot in the head, hung up by their legs, and taken into the killing floor, where their throats are cut open and they are skinned, does this sound any better (Mieszkows, 2008 )?
The instances do not just stop there. In 2004, a KFC- supplying slaughterhouse in West Virginia was caught on tape stomping on chickens, kicking them, and violently slamming them against the floors and walls. The video also showed how the workers ripped the animals’ beaks off, twisted their heads off, spat tobacco into their eyes and mouths, spray painted their faces, and squeezed their bodies so hard that the birds expelled feces, all of this happening while the chickens were fully conscious (“Undercover Investigations,” n.d.). Ducks and geese spend their entire lives crammed in dirty, dark sheds where they suffer from brutal injury and disease. They also endure the aberrant pain of having a pipe shoved down their throats at least three times everyday so that two pounds of grain can be pumped into their stomachs (PETA, n.d.).
