Imagine living in your own poop. 

If that isn't enough to disgust you, consider this: in factory farming, the loose (read: barely present) welfare standards allow livestock to be placed in minuscule and poorly sanitized environments, restricting movement and increasing the likelihood of disease. In many cases, farmers administer antibiotics to animals (particularly cattle raised for meat) to increase their weight, creating superbugs and thus decreasing their immunity to disease. Other practices, like hot branding (a process by which cattle are burned with irons so they can be told apart), confinement feeding (which is exactly what it sounds like), tail docking (removing part of the tail, as a means of making milking easier), dehorning and ear notching (yep, you guessed it; cutting an animal's ears or horns, for the same purpose as branding), and even more. 

Still not convinced? What do you think it does for your health when all of that ends up at the tip of your fork?

So, just what is my purpose here? To make the official legal standards for farming cattle and dairy cows, pigs, turkeys, goats, geese, ducks, chickens, and sheep match Animal Welfare Approved Standards that address practices including, but not limited to:

1. Basic sanitation and cleanliness,

2. Slaughter procedures causing as little pain and trauma to the animals as possible, and

3. A commitment to maintaining animals' overall well-being.                                                                                                                             

 In addition to securing these standards, I want to officially ban hot branding.                                                                                     

Factory farms are exploiting animals to make a profit and will continue to do so if consumers turn a blind eye.                         

Achieving animals the respect that animals deserve will will be difficult, but well worth our efforts.                                                                

Please, sign this petition to make life a little bit brighter for farm animals. If you'd like to help out another way, check out the Humane Society of the U.S.: https://www.humanesociety.org