Factory Farms Paula Berry Soc120 Intro to ethics and social responsibility Marty McAuliffe October 20 2008 On Oprah Winfrey this week she investigated the factory farms and the way the animals are treated. The animals are raised primarily for food purposes but in the process they are not treated very well. I will discuss the cruelty that these animals endure during their lives until they are slaughtered for food. Even though they are being raised for food they should not be in these conditions. Pregnant pigs which can weigh more than five – hundred pounds and measure about five to six feet long are caged in crates that are only seven feet long. How can this be justified when there are so many farms that can make more room for these animals but choose not to? Hogs and pigs have to be kept in the dark for nearly twenty four hours to keep them calm. Pig breeders are compelled to keep pigs on two thirds of solid flooring. One third of it is grate to let the manure fall through. Standing on the grate all day causes foot injuries and infections. Since they live in small cages they panic when they have to travel to the slaughterhouse. Just in the Netherlands alone about ten thousand pigs and piglets a day are transported to the slaughterhouse. They go there to be fattened up or killed. The pigs make themselves sick from the stress of traveling. The males are castrated without anesthesia to satisfy the foreign market. The small of male hormones on the meat is no good for the sale. The pigs suffer from heart and stomach problems from the stress of not having enough room to move around in. they end up chewing the cages they are in as a result of the stress they have. Normally pigs are very happy and playful animals. Cows are bred to produce unnaturally large amounts of milk which weakens their bodies and causes them sickness. They have very high levels of stress from the way they are treated. They are exposed to extreme weather conditions, and that eventually...