How many of us have stopped to think about how meat, eggs and dairy products end up on our table? For those who have, many summon up idyllic visions of Old MacDonald's farm, where animals enjoy happy, carefree lives. We imagine pigs cooling themselves in mud baths, while chickens forage in a barnyard. Unfortunately, this charming scene is a far cry from the realities of modern-day factory farming.
In the United States, approximately 95 percent of pigs are confined inside massive factory farms where they're unable to step foot outdoors or even escape the stench of their own feces. These pigs are denied many of their natural behaviors, including foraging, rooting in fields and building nests. Quite simply, they're viewed merely as meatand piglet-making machines.
For pigs raised for meat, their abuse begins shortly after birth. Piglets are commonly mutilated — their tails are cut off and their ears are notched. The males are castrated — all without any painkillers. They are prematurely weaned and taken from their mothers much earlier than they would naturally, only to spend the rest of their shortened lives in overcrowded and filthy pens.
Their mothers also suffer immensely, confined inside individual, metal gestation crates during their four-month pregnancies — crates so restrictive they cannot turn around or move side-to-side more than a few inches. The anxiety and frustration of living in these inhumane and severely intensive conditions cause them to develop stress-induced disorders, such as biting the cage bars and obsessively sucking on their water bottles.
Indeed, the gestation crate is so abusive that the European Union has begun phasing out its use, and Florida voters passed a 2002 ballot initiative to ban them. Yet, the U.S. pork industry still stands by this customary-yet inherently cruel-practice of intensively confining mother pigs. It's long overdue for us to support legislation to end the worst abuses rampant in modern-day hog factories.
Pigs are not the only farm animals who suffer cruelty and abuse. The hens who lay the eggs sold and served on Princeton's campus have parts of their beaks sliced off with a hot metal blade, without any painkillers. These birds are overcrowded in "battery cages" too small for them even to spread their wings. After about a year, they can be starved for up to two weeks in order to induce yet another egg-laying cycle. Chickens raised for meat are selectively bred and given antibiotics to grow so quickly that their legs often cripple underneath their unnatural weight. At slaughter, those who miss the slicing blade are scalded alive in the feather-removal tank.
And cattle endure painful mutilations, such as de-horning, branding and castration, performed without any anesthesia. The male babies of dairy cows are raised for veal, confined in stalls too narrow for them even to lie down comfortably.
Right here at Princeton, students can help animals raised for food by urging dining services not only to offer more vegetarian meals, but also to stop purchasing the most abusive animal products. With the help of The Humane Society of the United States, students are working to reform their dining facilities at more than 80 universities, including Yale, Penn State and Cornell. Just last month, students at George Washington University persuaded their school store to stop carrying eggs from caged birds. Princeton should and can be the next university to make this far-reaching commitment to help laying hens, as the campus is in a prime location to be sufficiently supplied with cage-free eggs from farms in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and others across the Northeast.
Princeton University is regarded as one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Let's have it be known as one of the most compassionate, as well. Josh Balk is the Outreach Coordinator for The Humane Society of the United States and can be reached at jbalk@hsus.org.
