Often, it is easy to separate ourselves from situations we feel do not concern us: homelessness, problems across the globe, litter someone else dropped in the street - it's not our problem. How about abuse in our own back yard?
The treatment of livestock in the U.S., specifically.
To bring the problem home, this series was devised. Instead of depicting animal cruelty, models were used in their stead. To humanize the situation. To force people to look at the atrocities another way.
I am not proposing a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle; I am not PETA. I am simply fighting for better, more humane treatment of livestock. Join me - demand ALL livestock be produced in a cruelty-free environment.
Caged ducks and geese, crammed inside enclosures so small they can't even move their wings. Grabbed by the throat. Force-fed through a sharp, metal tube. Stomachs pumped with up to 4 pounds of food - an amount equivalent to 45 pounds of food in a human - per day. Fed to the point of liver failure, with the affected organ growing to ten times its normal size. Diseased. Bleeding internally from the feedings; many birds die of infected puncture wounds on their throats. Those who survive the feeding process later have their throats slit in order to harvest their diseased liver. Pate foie gras.
Suffering for the sake of delicacy.
No sun, breeze, or open ranges. Only a cold, wire cage shroud in darkness. The hens see light only when handlers enter the coop to throw food to the captive birds. Around them, others lay sick and dying, forced to wallow in their own excrement. Some begin plucking out their own feathers in frustration. Others are too sick and lethargic to even fully lift their heads in the limited space. Kept only for their eggs, and meager amount of flesh.
Utterly alone, ripped from their mothers and siblings. Shoved into a 22"x54" crate, or bound to the floor to prevent movement. To prevent muscle growth. To further atrophy and prepare the calves for slaughter, the animals are fed a milk substitute, intentionally lacking in iron. Anemic, the calves are injected with growth hormones to produce a higher volume of tissue for sale. The more tender and pink the veal, the better the meat. The more meat, the more money to be made.
Castration. Tails ripped from piglets shortly after birth - without anesthetic. Some develop rectal prolapse, or hemorrhage. Survivors are herded into iron cages, where they spend the remainder of their short lives. Tagged. Tattooed. Beaten daily, simply for the sin of being born to a captive sow. Like Holocaust victims too sickly to serve a purpose to the powers that be, piglets are tossed into gas chambers (a wheelbarrow containing carbon monoxide gas). The healthy are kicked, prodded, tortured and are eventually the recipients of gunshot (from a bolt gun) to the forehead.
