Intensive, industrialised, factory - they're all words that describe modern farming methods. Intensive because as many animals as possible are crammed together in the smallest possible space. Industrialised because feeding, watering and dung clearing are often performed automatically. Factory because the philosophy of mass production is what lies behind it all.
It all began in Europe and the US encouraged by respective governments but has now spread to almost every country in the world, even the poorest of the developing nations. Like a recipe for a cake, there are no variables but a well-honed formula that standardises production and keeps prices low. Victims include humans who develop killer degenerative diseases as a result of eating too much saturated animal fat, animal protein and cholesterol.
Can you conceive of the mentality that looked at restlessly strutting chickens, descendants of jungle fowl, and decided to cram them five to a wire cage no bigger than a microwave oven - so small that not even one hen can stretch her wings? Then they piled thousands of cages one on top of another and forced the hens - through selective breeding, constant lighting and food unnaturally high in protein - to produce an egg almost every day of their short lives, when their ancestors laid just 20 a year.
So many egg shells that calcium is leached from the hen's bones, causing them to break from osteoporosis. This system produces about 60 per cent of all eggs in the UK. Barn egg production is equally squalid - no cages but sheds with upwards of 15 hens to a square meter. The sad little by-products of all egg systems are day-old male chicks, too scrawny for meat and incapable of laying eggs so 40 million are cruelly gassed with CO2 or minced alive every year in a macerating machine.

The fate of meat chickens is little better. As many as 30,000 or more are crammed into a single shed to stand in their own excreta for the six weeks of their obscenely short lives. Huge, waddling babies, forced to grow so unnaturally fast that their hearts can't cope and many die from heart disease. Legs break under their ballooning weight and despite this ordeal, these perversions of nature account for almost all chicken meat eaten. Ducks, turkeys and Guinea fowl all endure similar conditions - and geese are heading the same way.
What sane person would look at highly intelligent animals such as pigs and force them into overcrowded, concrete cells? No bedding, no enrichment, filth and squalor and absolutely nothing to do - unable to fulfil even their most basic natural instincts. And as a bonus, cut off their tails and crush their teeth without anesthetics in an attempt to control the resulting aggression.
A special barbarity is reserved for sows - female breeding pigs.
Until recently they spent their entire lives encased in metalbarred
crates little wider then their bodies, ensuring they could never turn
around or lie down properly. In Europe, continual campaigning has led to
the abolition of these stalls while the sows are pregnant and the
world's biggest pig producer, US-based Smithfield, has announced that it
will follow suit - eventually. Sow stalls have been replaced with yet
more barren concrete and filth except for 70 days a year when sows are
confined in metal farrowing crates while they deliver and suckle their
annual 2.5 litters. No wonder they go mad, gnawing at their bars in the
bleak and desolate despair of mental collapse.









Viva!
has filmed in more than 30 intensive pig farms in order to produce its
shocking Pig in Hell report and video. We have launched a campaign to ban
the barbaric farrowing crate and have embarrassed Tesco by exposing the
cruel conditions in which pigs are kept by one of its principal suppliers.
No wonder pig meat sales have been falling.
More
than three million kangaroos are shot annually in the Australian outback
for meat and leather with no let up in the slaughter despite crashing
population numbers. They are an essential part of the country's unique
ecology yet are blamed for its destruction. The real culprits are 160
million innocent but alien cattle and sheep, whose hard hooves are turning
Australia into a desert. Baby kangaroos - joeys - are not spared and are
dragged from their dead mothers' pouches and clubbed to death. Viva! ended
the sale of kangaroo meat through all the UK's 1,500 big supermarkets and
has targeted Adidas, the world's biggest consumer of kangaroo skin for
sports shoes.
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keeps them eating and growing until they carpet the faecessodden floor -
each bird allowed an area the size of an A4 piece of paper. They can
fulfil none of their natural instincts. Their deaths in automated
slaughterhouses are no better than their lives, some missing the throat
cutting machine and entering the scalding tank fully conscious. Viva! has
shown that big companies are no better than small ones by filming inside
sheds of the biggest producers - Grampian and Faccenda.
Turkey production is an almost exact repeat of chicken
farming. Three Christmases running, Viva! exposed the conditions birds are
subjected to by Europe's largest turkey producer - Bernard Matthews -
including footage shown on GMTV. Sales of factory-farmed turkey meat fell.
By
covertly filming inside slaughterhouses and at sites of ritual religious
slaughter, we showed that killing is far from humane - in fact it is
obscene. We've revealed than animals often recover consciousness while
bleeding to death and fully-conscious, religiously slaughtered animals can
take minutes to die. This helped to end cruel 'home' slaughter and we are
working to ban ritual slaughter - and ultimately to end all slaughter.
Almost
all ducks are victims of intensive farming but with an added, cruel twist
- these beautiful aquatic animals are usually denied all water in which to
swim and on most farms have insufficient to preen properly. By covertly
filming inside sheds belonging to some of the biggest producers, Viva!
ended the barbaric practice of debeaking in the UK and persuaded Marks &
Spencer and Harrods to ditch all factory-farmed whole ducks. Every year in
France, 30 million ducks are forced into cages, so small they can't even
stretch their wings - and are used to produce the cruel delicacy foie-gras.
Trapped and helpless, a metal tube is thrust down their throats and vast
quantities of food is forcibly pumped into their stomachs so that their
livers swell painfully up to 10 times their natural size. The suffering of
these birds is so extreme it would be illegal in this country. However,
free trade laws mean that every year we import tonnes of these diseased
livers, marketed as an expensive delicacy. Britain is a driving force
behind this cruel industry. And Viva!'s campaign to make Britain a
foie-gras free zone gathers pace, as restaurants increasingly drop it from
their menus.
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to Italy to be slaughtered for meat in appalling conditions. The journey
takes days and often horses are not fed, watered or rested en route. Our
campaign has seen the numbers collapse to 30,000 and we're working to end
the trade entirely. A dedicated campaign by Viva! persuaded the Whole
Foods supermarket chain to completely rewrite its animal welfare code and
introduce the highest standards in the world. The owner of the company
subsequently became vegan and credited Viva!. We also stopped Adidas from
selling its kangaroo skin boots in California and have helped persuade the
California Senate to approve a bill banning foie gras production in the
state.