“They blink. They make noises. The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, and the hide puller. They die, piece by piece.” Referring to his experiences witnessing the animal slaughter process, a former slaughter house worker reviled. If people could just think for a second about all the horrific details of slaughter houses it would be impossible for them to continue their meat eating life style. Unfortunately most people in the United States are uninformed of the cruel treatment and neglect taking place in slaughter house across the country. Also animals are kept in the most unsanitary conditions and almost everything about these awful places is in violation of the Animal Act of 1960. The Amendment basically states that animals have four basic rights; food, water, shelter, and veterinary services or humane treatment. More people should chose vegetarianism to help the conditions of slaughter houses. It would benefit the land, the animals, and the food supply if more people chose to be vegetarians. The truth is slaughter houses have no right to do half the things they continue to do every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

In 2002 a remarkable 10 billion animals were slaughtered in the U.S. Over the course of a year the average American consumes 230 pounds of animals. Everyone combined equals an amazing total of 2.6 billion pounds of animal meat. The amount of animals killed is the equivalent to 30 times the total American population. Specifically 38million cows and calves, 95 million hogs, 5 million sheep, 278 million turkeys, 20 million ducks, and 7 billion chickens are slaughtered a year. Although it may not sound corrupt to just eat meat, if you think a little harder about all the food used to raise just one animal (especially because animals are greatly over fed to make them fatter for better meat) slaughter house take more food than they make. 10,000 pounds of apples and 20,000 pounds of potatoes could be successfully grown into food; only 500 pounds of animal meat could be raised of from that. Twenty years ago Mexico contributed 6% of grain to their slaughter house livestock; today their livestock consumes nearly 50% of their total grain. Canada gives 77% of all their grain. It takes 4 acres of land to feed one meat eater; it only takes ½ an acre to feed a vegetarian. If American countries alone would reduce their meat consumption by just 10% that would save enough grain to feed 60 million people. Vegetarians save a lot more than just animals.

22 violations were found in a slaughter house in Texas over a 6 month period. Many more laws a broken in slaughter everyday all over the country. The most frequently broken laws include; No torturing or subjecting animals to unnecessary pain and suffering, no keeping animals in cages that are not a sufficient amount of room to go with their measurement, animals cannot be exposed their own kind getting slaughtered, and animals that are below 6 months of age, pregnant, sick, or animals supplying milk cannot be slaughtered. Things are not being done about these violations because the people who go into slaughter house don’t go much farther than the entrance. Over all there are 3 main things wrong with slaughter houses; the way animals are raised, transported, and killed.

Animals are fed much more than they should be. A lot of the time some of their legs break under the weight of their overfed bodies. Smaller animals are all stuffed into a limited area where it becomes a fight for food. Chicken’s beaks have to be cut off –with no pain killers- just to prevent them from pecking at each other. Bulls have to get their horns cut off, pigs get their ears cut off, and many more animals suffer from losing needed body parts with no pain killers. Pigs and many other animals are separated from their mothers at birth. No animals’ life is even remotely decent within slaughter houses. While being transported animals are shoved, hurled, and even forced to run places. Bulls and other larger animals have chili powder put in their eyes to make then run faster to the destination. Bulls also often times get blinded from being poked in the eye with other bull’s horns. Chickens and smaller animals are put into small cages with others. There are several slaughter methods and not one of them could be classified as humane. Some of the methods include: elocution, cutting their throats and letting the animals bleed out, stabbing, taking a sharp metal rod and pushing it through the anal area all the way to the mouth, freezing, burning, and the claves are gassed within the first year of their life. Whenever an animal is killed it is given no pain relief and sometimes the animals don’t die until they are completely skinned.

Those are only some of the dreadful conditions of slaughter houses. Nobody in their right mind would ever think anything like that is remotely moral. The average vegetarian saves 21 cows, 14 sheep, 12 hogs, and 1400 chickens from being slaughtered over a life time. Therefore one person does make a difference! That is why people need to be informed; so they can make an educated choice for their life style The selection of a vegetarian life style can improve the lives of many animals in slaughter houses and save a good amount of food as well. Steps need to be taken to help improve the conditions of these slaughter houses. The first step is to look at yourself, think about how much meat is in your diet and how that effects this situation. The next step is to recreate your diet and life style, maybe going full vegetarian won’t work for you but maybe cutting back will. Lastly inform people, see what they can do to help as well. A wise woman named Linda McCartney once said “If slaughter houses had glass walls everyone would be a vegetarian.” So next time you pick up the double cheese burger think about the cow it came from and everything it went through, maybe you’ll reconsider taking the next bite.
Works Cited
"An inside look at slaughter houses." Animal rights articles. All- creations, 13 December 2002. Web. 7

Oct 2010. <http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-aninsidelook.html>.

Blandford, David. "Animal Welfare." Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm & Resource Issues 21.3

(2006): 195. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 29 Sept. 2010.