Every year in the United States, over 9.5 billion chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows are butchered for our food. The majority of these animals live on vast industrial factory farms. In these farms, filthy wired or metal cages and grungy enclosures are the only shelters for their animals. These enclosures and cages lack windows and sunshine. The experience of sunlight and fresh air may only occur on a truck headed for the slaughterhouse. To boost their earnings, farms use antibiotics, crowd animals, and genetically modify them. The incapability of turning around to reach their food and water leads to agony for the animals. It is not the absence of needed space causing these issues. Instead, the way factories utilize their space compels these issues. There is a regulation on stunning the animals before slaughtering them, but I have researched and found that many of the stunning methods are brutal. The slaughtering of an animal will never be truly humane. Yet ways to butcher animals more humanely can include many different methods. Overall, this way of farming appears selfish and inconsiderate to multiple factors. 

Besides the harm this type of farming has on animals, many other factors are affected. Factory farms are accountable for approximately 15% of all human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions. Every year in the United States, factory farm animals produce an estimated 885 pounds of manure. The control to maintain this waste is managed by EPA, yet it is not enforced as well as it should be. Cruel factory farming also provokes immense stress on the animals, which can lead to bacteria and parasites in the animals that can develop food-borne illnesses in people. Raising awareness for this cause will benefit the animals subjected to this cruel treatment.