Factory farming - Not just chickens.

Factory farming is not something that happens solely to egg producing chickens, pigs are also treated in disgusting ways, along with chickens that are reared to be eaten and their are now proposals of building cubicles in the South Island for dairy cows to be raised in.

This web page, written by the Animal Justice Fund with support from SAFE, outlines the use of battery cages for chickens and sow stall and the disturbing effect they have on the animals they are used to contain.

CHICKEN PRODUCTION

• 90 million chickens are killed annually for their meat.


• Up to 40,000 chickens are confined together inside large windowless sheds at a stocking density of 19 birds per square metre.


• Nearly 3.5 million chickens die annually from of health problems before six weeks of age.


• 38 per cent of New Zealand’s chickens experience difficulties walking.


• broiler chickens are reared to their slaughter weight of around 1.8 to 3 kg within just 6 weeks of being hatched (chickens are normally fully grown by 5-6 months). By selective breeding, the length of time broiler chicks take to grow to 2 kg has been halved in the last 30 years.


• Over the last 20 years, annual chicken consumption has increased from 14kg (1986) to an average 35kg of chicken meat per person per year.

As this article by SAFE suggest, global fast food giant - KFC, supports this method of chicken rearing.

PIGS

• Sows confined in sow stalls cannot perform most of their natural behaviour, as is required under the Animal Welfare Act 1999. They cannot walk or turn around, and can only lie down or stand up.


• Sow stalls have been banned in the United Kingdom and Sweden and are being phased out in Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark.


• The government acknowledged in 2005 that sow stalls did not meet the obligations of the Animal Welfare Act 1999, but despite this they did not ban their use.


• Approximately 45 per cent of the sows farmed in New Zealand (about 21,000 animals) are confined to sow stalls the same size as those seen on the Sunday programme. Alternatively, to sow stalls only 60 cm wide and 2 meters long.


• Scientific evidence shows that pigs kept in intensive farms suffer from psychological distress, frustration, lung and heart disease, leg problems and lameness, and display stereotypical behaviour such as bar biting.


• In 2007 there were about 370,000 pigs kept on New Zealand farms, including nearly 47,000 breeding sows.

There have even plans to factory farm cows, this would be done by using a method which includes the use of cubicles to house cows. This article by SAFE and this article from APN/New Zealand Herald outlines the plans by 3 companies to create 16 of these farms in New Zealand's South Island to house 17,850 cows and what would be involved.