Time was when idyllic scenes of cows grazing with calves nearby, chickens scratching underfoot and pigs rooting and snorting in the soil were commonplace across the North American landscape. Sadly, however, the family farm is a thing of the past. Today, only 10 to 15 percent of our meat, dairy and poultry products come from these traditional farms. The majority comes from animal factories where cows, pigs and chickens are commodities to be bought, sold and slaughtered.

Double standard for domestic descendants
Canine experts believe that most modern dogs are descendants of wolves, domesticated more than 12,000 years ago to help early hunters track their prey. By contrast, domestic cats started out as mouse and rat catchers in Egyptian granaries -- working independently of the people they served. Today, most dogs and cats are no longer needed to work for us; we care for them in exchange for love and companionship. But farm animals, domesticated and raised to please our palates, live in conditions we could not bear for our beloved companions. In the name of profit, farm animals are treated brutally, not just at the time of slaughter, but for their entire lives. They suffer and die for us in far greater numbers than any other category of animal.

Estimated Number of Animals Killed in 1996 in the United States

Dogs and cats killed in shelters     10 Million
Animals killed for their fur      25-50 Million
Animals used in research     100 Million
Wild animals shot by hunters     200 Million

Pigs     90 Million
Cattle     40 Million
Sheep     4 Million
Turkeys     290 Million
Broiler Chickens      7.5 Billion
Laying Hens     154 Million

CHICKENS
History and Lifestyle
Chickens have been kept as livestock, domesticated for their flesh and eggs, since the Neolithic era. For centuries, most domestic chickens were kept in small flocks and given the run of the barnyard, exhibiting the same behavior as their wild relatives.

Chickens are active birds, with lifespans of 15 to 20 years, who scratch and peck for food with clawed toes and sensitive beaks. Communication among chickens is both visual and vocal: a mother hen begins to identify her chicks' individual clucks while they are still in the egg. In a flock of up to about 90 birds, adult chickens can recognize and remember each other and keep intruders out. They have a strong territorial impulse and maintain a complex pecking order to spatially orient themselves within the flock. Crowing also serves to define territory, as each rooster is able to recognize the crow of at least 30 others. At night, chickens roost together in trees, but when nesting they prefer privacy.

On the Factory Farm
Modern day commercial poultry operations are highly mechanized to ensure maximum production and profit. Laying hens stand crowded close together in small wire cages, without enough room to lie down or stretch their wings. Their feet, feathers and skin become chaffed and deformed from continual rubbing against the wire mesh of the cage. Deprived of privacy and nesting material, hens lay their eggs on the sloping wire floor of the cage, from which they roll into collection troughs. The hens are kept in semi-darkness and the ends of their beaks are cut off with a hot blade to keep them from pecking each other to death. They live in these conditions until they are slaughtered, at one to two years of age, when egg production declines.

COWS
History and Lifestyle
The domestication of the aurochs, the wild ancestor of all modern breeds of cattle, represents one of civilization's most notable advances. In addition to providing meat, milk and leather, cattle were harnessed to pull the plow, an important step in the evolution of agriculture. Selective breeding from those rangy originals has resulted in a wide variety of modern cows -- from dairy cows who produce more than 15,000 pounds of milk per year and beef cattle, bred for easy fattening and high yields of quality meat, to breeds that endure hot, dry and scant grazing land.

A cow's natural lifespan is between 20 and 25 years. They live in cooperative herds, with the strongest bonds among mothers and young and among age-mates. Only at the end of her nine-month gestation will a cow separate herself from the herd to give birth. The calf, standing and active soon after birth, will nurse from his mother as many as 10 times a day and begin eating grass when two weeks old. The bond between a cow and her calf remains even after weaning. Herd cohesiveness is maintained visually, with cows showing signs of distress when herd-mates are not in sight.

On the Factory Farm
To produce milk, a dairy cow must have a calf. For milk production year round, she must give birth every year. In order to keep that milk for human consumption, the calf must not be allowed to suckle. Fed a high-bulk diet of grain and additives that insures high production of milk, todayís dairy cows never get to graze; they are confined indoors or in pens devoid of grass. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated and the calves born each year are separated from their mothers within hours of birth. Some of the female babies are kept and raised to maintain the herd, but since they will not be able to maintain the high volume of milk for long, they will be slaughtered at four years of age and turned into processed beef and hamburger.

A by-product of the dairy industry, most of the calves are sent to veal farms or raised for beef. Those raised for veal spend their short lives chained in crates so narrow that they cannot turn around. To produce tender, high-quality veal, they are fed an iron-deficient liquid diet that leaves them weak and diseased. They will never see the sun, exercise or have the opportunity to graze before they are slaughtered at 16 weeks of age.

PIGS
History and Lifestyle
Wild pigs ranged throughout the Old World from China through the Middle East and Europe, surviving for millions of years in a wide variety of habitats. But because pigs cannot be herded over long distances, they were not domesticated until nomadic hunters and gatherers developed farming and a more sedentary lifestyle. Pigs proved to be prolific and easy to care for, almost three times as efficient as a steer in converting the same amount of feed into meat and fat.

Pigs are omnivores and will eat just about anything. They graze and use their keen sense of smell and sensitive snouts to find buried roots, shoots, worms and larvae. They are social animals: at night up to 15 pigs will snuggle together to keep warm. Expectant sows build nests and line them with leaves; they are quite attentive to the seven to 14 piglets born in each litter. Piglets are active soon after birth, playing cooperatively with their litermates, but sticking close to the sow until they are weaned at 13 to 17 weeks. ìBathroomî areas are established well away from sleeping and nesting places. Because they have no sweat glands, pigs cool themselves by wading in water or wallowing in mud, if thatís all that is available to them. Domestic pigs who have escaped from farms or been released in wildness areas quickly revert to the behaviors of their wild ancestors.

On the Factory Farm
Most of the bacon, pork and ham eaten in the United States comes from hog factories, where pigs are kept confined indoors, often for their entire lives. Sows live in crates so small they can barely move. Against all their natural instincts, sows must give birth to piglets, nurse them, eat, sleep and defecate all in the same cramped space. They are given no bedding or nesting material because it would soil quickly, and straw could clog the waste drainage systems. The piglets lie and stand on metal slats until they are weaned at three to five weeks of age. The sow is bred again and the young pigs are crowded into ìfinishingî pens with concrete floors for fattening and slaughter when they reach 200 to 250 pounds.

In addition to the discomfort, standing on concrete causes foot deformities and bone disease. To prevent aggression, tail biting and cannibalism that result from severe overcrowding, the pigs' tails are docked and their teeth clipped. Boars and pregnant sows live in single pens, sometimes tethered, deprived of any contact with other pigs. They are put on restrictive diets so they donít get too fat from lack of exercise. In these totally enclosed spaces, the accumulation of urine and feces causes serious health problems for both the pigs and the surrounding environment.

Circumventing Nature
One would think that factory farming would reach its natural limits, that when overcrowding and other unnatural conditions get too bad, the animals wouldnít survive long enough to produce the food they were grown for. But just the opposite is true. Each year new scientific breakthroughs allow farmers to further intensify production and circumvent the problems inherent in this cruel industry.

Disease spreads easily among animals raised in close quarters. As a result, antibiotic-laced animal feed is the norm on factory farms. The World Health Organization has declared the overuse of antibiotics in farming the major cause of our growing resistance to these once life-saving drugs. In the last decade, there has been a tremendous rise in salmonella poisoning in humans from eating chickens and eggs grown on factory farms. On traditional farms, chicks gain immunity to these bacteria from contact with their mothers. On the factory farm, since chicks never see adult hens, they do not develop immunity. Rather than allowing hens to raise their young, factory farmers now give newborn chicks a new "wonder drug" developed by the profit-hungry pharmaceutical industry that prevents salmonella contamination -- and allows large-scale factory farming to continue.

Most people equate milk with good health -- for their children and themselves. However, milk, cheese and other dairy products are far from the purity we expect. Unless otherwise labeled, the milk we buy in the grocery store comes from cows given Bovine Growth Hormones (BGH). Injections of BGH stimulate cows to produce more milk. This leads to mastitis (a painful udder disease), lameness and reproductive disorders in cows, which in turn cause increased viral infections. These conditions are treated with more antibiotics, which, of course, end up in the milk we drink.

Factory farm animals are fed and sprayed with pesticides to kill the parasites that proliferate in overcrowded conditions or when animals lie in their own excrement. The result: meat and fat that contain high concentrations of these various toxins. For this reason, Dr. Andrew Weil, a noted health expert and director of Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, recommends eating lower on the food chain (that is, less meat and more grains, fruits and vegetables) and staying away from farmed fish as it, too, may contain residuals of the drugs used to control diseases in crowded fish farms.

The Environmental Costs of Our "Cheap" Meat
Q: How much manure is produced on one factory farm or feedlot by 250,000 hogs, 80,000 chickens or 100,000 cows?
A: The amount of farm animal manure produced nationwide is 130 times as great as the amount of human waste -- five tons of manure per person. And while sewage treatment is required for human waste, it is not treated on farms. The Environmental Protection Agency says that the largest contributor of waste run-off polluting our rivers and streams is factory farms and feedlots.

Q: How much water is needed to grow the grain to feed a cow to produce a one pound steak?
A: 2,500 gallons. By contrast, it takes just 25 gallons of water to grow the grain to produce a one-pound loaf of bread. To supply a person with meat, milk and eggs each day requires 100 gallons of water per day, which is estimated to be as much as is used for all other household purposes combined.

Q: What do rainforests have to do with hamburgers?
A: Fifty percent of tropical rainforest destruction occurs to make room for livestock. Our demand for meat has profound effects around the world.

Food for Thought
Those of us who wish to treat farm animals with compassion can begin by choosing a humane diet for ourselves and our families. Without too much extra effort, we can purchase products from humane farms, eat less meat and replace animal products with other animal-friendly foods.

• Read labels
  You can assume that all animal foods, unless otherwise labeled, come from factory farms. Look for meat and eggs from free-range animals, with no added antibiotics. Buy products that are certified as organic.

• Find alternatives
  For families resistant to change, try a non-meat substitute. There are a large number of vegetarian alternatives for almost all fast foods and many are carried by the large grocery store chains. For even more choices, try the local health food store.

• If you care about animals
  Think about your food choices. Ask yourself with each bite if you are contributing to animal suffering. For those who care about animals, humane food choices are a natural.

National Farm Animals Awareness Week will be held September 20 - 26, 1998. Howard Lyman, the Humane Society of the United States' Eating with Conscience spokesperson, will speak at PHS on Wednesday, September 16. For more information call Pam Patek at 650/340-7022, ext. 369.

caption A
To survive on grasses, cows have evolved extremely complex digestive systems. The average cow spends about six hours a day eating grasses and other roughage and eight hours ruminating (chewing the partially digested food prior to full digestion).

caption B
Broiler chickens are debeaked and then crowded together by the thousands in windowless sheds while being fattened for slaughter. Eight weeks later, the live chickens are hung upside down by their feet, then stunned, before their necks are cut.

caption C
About two percent of the cattle raised for beef have the chance to graze before being brought to crowded feedlots where 50,000 to 100,000 animals are crowded together without shade or shelter to be fattened for slaughter. US Wildlife Services routinely kill wild animals, including wolves, mountain lions and coyotes to protect livestock grazing on public lands. In addition, overgrazing has resulted in tremendous topsoil depletion and ecological destruction in western rangelands.