Sarah's Story

Just wanted to post this. Sarah, at the time 10 years old (she's 11 now), wrote this piece on some aspects of factory farming. She entered it in a school contest and won in the literature category. I am very proud of her.


This Is Not Old McDonald’s Farm

By Sarah Bagnall, 10 years old


The hustle and bustle of lunch rush. Forks and knives clinking. The clatter of dishes. You struggle to squeeze in as you finally take your seat. After you order, your mouthwatering burger arrives. You take your first bite and you feel like you are in a trance. Have you ever thought about an animal’s last hours before going to the slaughterhouse?

That meat could have been of a dairy cow. Slaughterhouse owners say it is unprofitable to keep cows alive once their milk productions decline. They are usually killed at five to six years of age, though their normal lifespan exceeds a little bit over 20. Dairy cows are rarely allowed to nurse their young. Many male calves are slaughtered immediately, while others are raised for “special-fed veal”—kept in individual stalls and chained by the neck on a 2- to 3-foot tether for 18 to 20 weeks before being slaughtered.

During transportation, animals are crammed together and forced to stand in their own excrement while exposed to extreme temperatures in open trucks, sometimes freezing to the trailer. Approximately 200,000 pigs arrive dead at U.S. slaughterhouses each year; many of these deaths are caused by a lack of ventilation on trucks in hot weather. Workers shock the animals with electric prods, which increases the incidence of “downers”—animals too sick or injured to stand. Downers are hauled from the trucks with skid loaders and forklifts.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) classified 75% of world marine stocks as fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted. Hundreds of thousands of mammals, including dolphins, die in nets each year. The fastest growing animal food-producing sector is fish farming. Inappropriate stocking on farms causes poor water quality, stress, aggression, injuries, disease, and mortality. As Paul McCartney said, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

Unfortunately, approximately 280 million hens remain in U.S. battery cages, where they are denied almost every natural behavior. Chickens raised for meat are crowded together in warehouse-style sheds and must compete for food and water. Soon after birth and without painkillers, parts of hens’ and turkeys’ sensitive beaks are seared off with a hot blade. Factory farmers mutilate them to diminish the effects of aggression caused by severe overcrowding. Many birds are slaughtered while fully conscious. Egg-laying hens are crowded in wire “battery cages” the size of filing drawers stacked one on top of another. Nearly all chickens we eat (called “broilers”) are kept tightly packed in sheds without access to the outdoors.

You are drumming your fingers on the table as you wait for your water. You push your burger away from you, as you realize you don’t want it. You decide to get a filling veggie burger instead.

You could stop this gruesome behavior. Make a choice.

Thanks, Sarah! I'll be sure and let Sarah know.