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In the next few minutes you will be given an eye opening look
behind the closed doors of modern farms,
hatcheries and slaughter plants, revealing the journey that animals make from farm to fridge.
For nearly their entire 4 months' pregnancies,
mother sows are locked in narrow metal stalls barely larger than their own bodies.
Many of the animals develop open sores and scratches.
Workers often kick, hit and yell at pigs to move them.
Soon after birth, piglets are castrated by workers who cut into their skin and rip out their testicles.
Next, the workers chop off their tails.
Both of these painful procedures are nearly always done without anesthesia.
Many animals die from batch mutilations.
Piglets who become sick or injured or who are not growing quickly enough are killed.
Common killing methods include throwing animals into bins and painfully gassing them with carbon dioxide.
Others are killed by being slammed, head first, into the ground.
by hanging them on a forklift to be slowly strangled to death,
workers kill injured sows
a practice defended by the pork industry.
Pigs raised for meat typically live only 5 to 6 months,
a mere fraction of their natural lifespan,
in overcrowded pens, like these.
Workers frequently tattoo the animals with ID numbers
by hitting them with metal spike mallets.
Once pigs have reached market weight, they are sent to slaughter.
At the slaughterhouse pigs are knocked in the head with a steel road, hung upside down
and have their throat slit.
Improper stunning condemns many pigs to having their throats slit while they are fully conscious, and suffering.
Others are even scolded alive in the hair removal tanks.
From the moments they hatch, the egg industry subjects chicks to horrors few of us can even imagine.
At the hatchery, workers quickly and roughly sort the males from the females.
Because male chicks don't lay eggs, and do not grow quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat,
they are killed within hour after hatching.
Male chicks are typically thrown into giant grinding machines while still alive.
This practice is deemed standard and acceptable by the egg industry.
Another killing method is to drop male chicks into trash bags to be smothered or suffocated.
More than 200 millions unwanted male chicks
are killed on their first day of life each year in the United States.
The females have it even worse, destined for a life of prolonged cruelty.
To reduce packing,
induced by overcrowded living conditions,
workers use a hot blade or laser to remove part of the chicks' beaks.
This mutilation can cause both acute and chronic pain.
After debeaking, the birds are moved to cages,
where they will spend the rest of their lives.
Nearly 95% of egg lying hens spend their lives confined in tiny wired cages like these.
Most birds never see sunlight or breathe fresh air.
They are packed so tightly,
they cannot even spread their wings, walk or turn around without pushing other birds aside.
The harsh and unrelenting environment of the cage takes its toll,
often leading to severe feather loss, open wounds and birds trapped in cage wire.
For many hens, the stressful confinement is too much,
leading to premature death.
Undercover investigations at egg farms from coast to coast,
reveal a culture of cruelty and neglect,
including workers stomping on birds,
throwing live hens on death piles and in trash cans
and painfully mangling birds' spines in butch attempts to break their necks.
At 1 or 2 years of age, when the hen's egg production begins to decline, she's violently ripped from her cage.
Workers often fling the birds into metal carts, where they are painfully suffocated with carbon dioxide.
Crowded by the thousands into filthy sheds,
chickens and turkeys are denied many of their most basic natural behavior and needs,
such as fresh air and exercise.
Through genetic selection, chickens and turkeys raised for meat
have being bred to grow so large, so quickly,
that many suffer crippling leg disorders,
chronic joint pain, and even fatal heart attacks.
Sick or injured birds often have their necks broken.
Others are clubbed to death.
Those who live to reach market weight are thrown into transport crates
and loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter plants.
Handling is often violent, and frequently causes bruises,
broken bones and other injuries.
and roughly snapped upside down into moving shackles by their fragile legs.
From there, the birds are dragged through an electrified vat of water,
which renders them paralyze, but not necessarily unconscious.
They are then pulled across a blade which slices their throat,
causing blood to pour from their necks.
Some of the birds who miss the blade have their throats slit
or their heads ripped off by a back up killer.
Other birds are drown and scolded in the tanks of how water,
designed to loosen the birds' feathers.
Cows produce milk for the same reasons that humans do,
to nourish their young.
But calves in dairy farms are dragged away from their mothers
and violently killed.
All so the humans can have their milk instead.
The majority of today’s dairy cows are confined on factory farms,
some spend almost their entire lives standing on concrete floors,
others are cramped into massive mud lots.
Workers subject young cows to painful mutilations,
and amputations.
Here, a worker cuts off a cow's tail,
slicing through her sensitive skin,
nerves and bone without any pain killers.
Another routine practice is de-horning:
Burning into the calves' skulls to remove their very horns.
Painkillers are rarely used.
A 2010 undercover investigation at a dairy farm in Ohio
revealed a farm worker stabbing cows with pitchforks,
beating them in the head with crowbars
and punching baby calves.
Injuries and illness often run rampant in filthy,
diseased ridden factory farms environments.
Cows too sick or injured to stand are called downers,
and are often left to slowly suffer and die from their injuries.
At a fraction of their natural lifespan, the so-called spent dairy cows
are prodded onto transports trucks, and shipped to slaughterhouses.
An undercover investigation at a slaughterhouse in California
revealed down dairy cows being
kicked, shocked, pushed with forklifts
and water hosed in the mouth and nostrils in an effort to get them to the kill floor.
Most cattle raised for beef endure several mutilations without painkillers,
including castration
and hot iron branding.
Most spend the last few months of their lives in overcrowded feedlots,
standing in their own waste.
Unreliable stunning practices at the slaughterhouse
condemn many cattle to having their throats cut,
their limbs hacked off, while still alive and conscious.
Undercover investigations at kosher slaughterhouses in the United States
have documented the routine practice of cutting open the throats of fully aware and alert cattle.
Fish and other sea animals are sensitive, intelligent creatures
who have a demonstrated capacity to suffer pain.
Massive trawling nets indiscriminately drag hundreds of tons of fish
and other animals along the ocean floor.
As they are dragged up from the ocean's depths,
the fish undergo excruciatingly painful decompression.
The extreme changes in pressure can rupture their swim bladders
and pop up their eyes.
They are then tossed on board where the surviving fish either suffocated or are crashed to death.
Others are still alive when they are hacked apart on this floating slaughter houses.
Untold millions of dolphins, turtles
and other non-targeted aquatic animals are also killed by ocean trawling nets each year.
Today, approximately 1 in 5 fish consumed worldwide is raised in captivity.
Like factory farm animals on land,
farm raised fish are crowded by the tens of thousands,
in small, diseased and excrement ridden areas for their entire lives.
When fish reach market weight, they are loaded onto tanker trucks and shipped to slaughter,
where common killing methods include slow suffocation.
Farm animals are every bit as intelligent, curious and capable of feeling pain and suffering as the dogs and cats so many of us know and love.
If you are at all moved by this film, please do your part.
Make a commitment today to explore a vegan diet.
It could be one of the best decisions of your life.
By withdrawing our support of this cruel and violent system,
we can put our ethics on the table
and make a statement for a kinder and more compassionate society for all animals.
For delicious vegan recipes, nutritional information and tips on making the transition to a plant based diet,
please visit chooseveg.com
THANK YOU FOR WATCHING - Subtitles by Lomedin -