Just like humans, animals are living beings that seek happiness and freedom. Unfortunately, in the animal agriculture business they are not offered happiness or freedom; instead they often suffer from hunger, thirst, malnutrition, injury, disease, fear and distress. The animals are crammed into crowded and filthy housing units where they spend the majority of their short lives. Due to these living conditions many of the animals die from infectious disease before they can be transported to the slaughterhouse. Those that survive are crammed into trucks and transported in extreme weather conditions without food or water. When they arrive at the slaughterhouse their necks are slit while still conscious and their bodies are plunged into boiling hot water.
Many people don’t realize that the animals that are raised to eat are intelligent and capable of feeling pain. For example, pigs are considered the fifth most intelligent animals in the world- that is more intelligent than dogs. Pigs have even been shown to have more focus than chimps. In addition, pigs also have a great sense of direction and are able to find their way home from long distances away. Pigs and other farm animals are also capable of feeling happiness, loneliness, anger, fear and pain just like cats and dogs that we consider part of the family. The only difference between the animals that we consider family and those that we eat is the way that we treat them.
