The Suffering of Livestock

The Suffering
If these billions of animals lived happy, healthy lives and had quick and painless deaths, then a concern for suffering would lead us to focus our efforts elsewhere. But animals raised for food must endure horrible cruelties. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of advocating on behalf of these animals is trying to describe the suffering they endure: the confinement and overcrowding, the stench, the racket, the extremes of heat and cold, the attacks and even cannibalism, the hunger and starvation, the illness, the mutilation, the broken bones and failing organs, etc. Indeed, every year, hundreds of millions of animals – many times more than the number killed for fur, in shelters, and in laboratories combined – don’t even make it to slaughter. They actually suffer to death.