Compassion
Factory Farming
Life for Today's Farm Animals
Our image of farm animals is for the most part a pleasant one. "Old MacDonald had a farm," goes the children's rhyme, and it is followed by accounts of a moo-moo here, a moo-moo there, everywhere a moo-moo.
The children's rhyme does not mention that the animals are killed for food. But somehow we are left with the idea that except for being killed at the end, farm animals are well cared for. Farm animals (at least in our imagination) enjoy beautiful surroundings and lead natural lives that many humans would envy: cows grazing, chickens scratching on the ground, and pigs rooting in the field. It seems that farm animals don't live a bad life.
Or do they?