For society to function, people have to be willing to speak out to make change. The cramped, crowded, and at times dangerous confinement of animals in factory farms is inhumane to both animals and the people who rely on those animals for food. For meat to be produced quickly, efficiently, and within small areas such as single farming units, factory farms are required to use small spaces to store massive amounts of animals. As of a 2007 census, Connecticut reported over 12,500 animals in factory farms. In 2011 the Huffington post reported about the roof collapse at Koskoff egg farm in Bozrah Connecticut, killing 85,000 hens. The unfortunate lack of legislation in Connecticut and absence of oversight for these farms allows not only a lack of knowledge on the exact number of animals in these farms, but a continuation of unnecessary risks that affect these animals daily - and in the long run, our state.

Disease: Because close confinement can breed disease easier, factory farms have commonly used antibiotics for their animals. Bacteria commonly changes and adapts to threats of their own environment. The overuse of antibiotics, necessary because of the extreme close quarter conditions of the animals, causes antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Avian influenza, H1-N1, and even the black plague are all examples of cross-species contamination that have caused everything from fear, to - in the case of the black plague - near annihilation of the human species. Without antibiotics for these animals, one small disease could wipe out an entire group. As long as we shove livestock into small, limited spaces, we inevitably risk our own health and the wellbeing of the human species.

Despair: Imagine being given growth hormones so you could be more valuable to someone. Now imagine you have been given hormones so powerful that you could barely stand from your own weight, growing too fast for your bones to adjust. Now imagine being shoved in crates of pens so small that - even if you had the capability to stand - you couldn’t. Any person, no matter their political beliefs on animal rights, can easily see the despair these animals go through in any video or picture shot of factory farms. We have laws to protect domestic animals from being maliciously abused, but why is it ok to abuse animals for profit or simply because they are termed “farm animals”? Does the ease of getting all of our meat from fewer, larger farms, justify the hopeless despair these animals could feel? Some die from heart attacks brought on from the stress of such a bleak, crowded, and brutal environment. Isn’t that proof enough that their despair is palpable? Does it make any sense that we feel it is only right that our dogs and cats should be kept from unnecessary pain, but the pigs, cows, and hens of our farms are seen as mere objects?

Debris: Having massive amounts of animals in a small space also creates a massive amount of fecal debris. Waste management for any society is a vital concern, but for companies who have massive amounts of animal waste and nowhere to put it, the most cost efficient solutions usually win out. Air quality, river pollution, stream pollution, and coastal pollution can all result from the massive dumping of waste necessary for these large farms to exist.

Devaluation: These farms which require extreme confinement of their animals to successfully run not only devalue the feelings of conscious creatures such as pigs, cows, and chickens, but they devalue the lives of their workers and the people who live in the surrounding areas. A recent Pew Research study titled “Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” found that workers and neighbors of industrial farms had a high level of respiratory problems. Both the disease risk and the debris risk of these farms goes hand-in-hand and puts the well-being of everyone - animals, neighbors and workers - to these farms in a value below the value of their own productivity.

What can we do? California recently passed laws against both gestation crates and battery cages. Florida, Arizona, Rhode Island, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon all have also banned or phased out forms of inhumane and in the long run, inefficient or dangerous practices of animal confinement. Why is it, in a state that prides itself on liberal rights, intelligence, and forward thinking, we in Connecticut have yet to ban these horrible practices? By signing this petition you can help ask your state legislator to pass laws that will change for the better the present circumstance of many animals, and the future circumstance of our beautiful state.

For more information on factory farming, gestation crates, and other related issues:

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/confinement_farm/facts/gestation_crates.html​

http://www.foodwhistleblower.org/campaign/hormel-hogs/​

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/85000-hens-killed-in-conn_n_818575.html