Cows Used for Their Flesh
Cattle raised for their flesh spend the first year of their lives grazing. In fact, they
are the only farmed animals other than sheep who are ever allowed to do anything natural, like
breathe fresh air or feel sun on their backs.
However, cattle are still subjected to abuses that would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals
charges if they were dogs or cats. To mark cows for identification, ranchers restrain the animals
and push hot fire irons into their flesh, causing third degree burns, as they bellow in pain and
attempt to escape. Male calves’ testicles are ripped from their scrotums without pain relievers,
and the horns of cows raised for beef are cut or burned off.
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Cows’ horns are cut or burned off at the base, often causing extreme pain. |
While “on the range,” most cows receive inadequate veterinary care, and as a result, many
die from infection and injury. Every winter, cattle freeze to death in states like Montana,
Nebraska, and North Dakota. And every summer, cows collapse from heat stroke in states like
Texas and Arizona. After about a year of facing the elements, cows are shipped to an auction
lot and then across hundreds of miles to massive feedlots—feces- and mud-filled holding
pens where they are crammed together by the thousands. Many arrive crippled or dead from the
journey.
Cattle on feedlots are fed a very unnatural diet to fatten them up. This diet causes chronic
digestive pain—imagine your worst case of gastritis never going away—and some of their innards
actually become ulcerated and eventually rupture (the industry calls this condition “bloat”).
According to a study published in the Journal of Animal Science, this diet also causes potentially
fatal liver abscesses in as many as 32 percent of cattle raised for beef.2
The feedlot air is saturated with ammonia, methane, and other noxious chemicals, which build up
from the huge amounts of manure, and the cows are forced to inhale these gasses constantly.
These fumes can give the cows chronic respiratory problems, making breathing painful.
Cattle raised for food are also pumped full of drugs to make them grow faster and keep them alive
in these miserable conditions. Instead of taking sick cattle to see a veterinarian, many feedlot
owners simply give the animals even higher doses of human-grade antibiotics in an attempt to keep
them alive long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse.
Read about cows used for their milk.
2 T. G. Nagaraja and M. M. Chengappa, “Liver Abscessed in Feedlot Cattle: A Review,”
Journal of Animal Science, 1998.