Hell Factories.
A glimpse into the manufactures of suffering.
1: Sleepless.
Fifty thousand bodies crammed in a shed, constantly drenched in harsh white light. Genetically engineered to grow so fast that their bones break. Marinating in the stench of their own feces, their flesh often covered with blisters. And nothing else to do but eat, for even sleep is nearly impossible.
They live in a constant state of half-suffocation, both from the stench that surrounds them and from the monstrous amount of flesh that they develop during their short lives, which makes it hard to breath.
Going to the food stations is a nightmare due to the constant pain, but there is nowhere else to go. Some try to cannibalize the others. Some feed on dead bodies. Many are already rotting alive, as if their flesh knew how brief their lives would be, and had decided to start decaying on its own.
Fifty thousand walking corpses constantly feeding, under a harsh white light kept permanently on to prevent sleep, for sleep is a waste of time that could be spent eating. Eating is necessary for growth. Growth makes them valuable.
So they eat, and they grow. They grow so fast, so big, so monstrously enormous that every biological system breaks. But they are humanely harvested at six weeks anyway, and then their hypertrophied body parts are sold.
This story is about broiler chickens.
2: The Mothers.
One hundred and fourteen days confined in a space roughly the size of her body. She can stand, eat, and lay back down. The only other movements are coming from inside of her belly, from the new life that’s growing within her.
In front of her, a bucket filled with food. To her right, another pregnant mother. To her left, yet another. She cannot see farther, but from the noises she can tell that there are many more. Dozens of pregnant mothers all confined in boxes roughly the size of their bodies, with nothing else to do but stand, eat, and lay back down.
One hundred and fifteen days, and she has given birth. Her children are scattered around her, feeding off her body, but she cannot see them except when they are right in front of her, for she cannot turn, for she is confined in a box roughly the size of her body where she can only stand, eat, and lay back down.
She screams to be left out whenever someone walks in the corridor, but they never help. When she tries to escape, she is beaten and tossed back into the crate. To her right, another mother, surrounded by children feeding off her body, to her left yet another, and left and right of them, many more that she can’t see.
Thirty five more days. Her children are now gone. She doesn’t know where they have been taken. Her world is confined to a box roughly the size of her body, where she can stand and eat and lay back down, and nothing more, and she can’t see where her children are, and she can’t go where they are.
Female pigs are kept in gestation crates for the duration of their pregnancy (114 days). After that, they are moved to farrowing crates (15 to 35 days). They are then inseminated again and brought right back into the crates.
3: Living on a sheet of paper.
Iron wires and bars cutting through their flesh. Enough space to stand and rub against each other’s bones, then sit back to avoid being crushed against the bars. The smell of feces rising from under them. And every day, a part of them is taken.
Three hundred eggs a year laid in a space smaller than a standard sheet of paper, by a body that nature made to lay fifteen. Overclocked at twenty times the speed of its own biological limits. Every other natural function cut out for maximum efficiency, except for the ability to feel, except for the ability to want. Not that they want much. To wander. To scratch the ground. To roost. Simple needs. Every single one of them denied.
And so, three hundred parts of suffering are extracted each year from beings whose entire world is smaller than a standard sheet of paper.
This story describes the life of egg-laying hens confined in battery cages.
4: A trillion suffocations.
How much is a trillion? If you tried to count to a trillion at the pace of one number every second without any breaks or mistakes, it would take you about thirty-two thousand and seven hundred and ten years. This information isn’t particularly helpful. No one ever lived much more than a hundred years, let alone three hundred and seven hundred years.
I guess we can at least say a trillion is a lot.
How bad is it to suffocate to death? If you have ever had a panic attack or an asthma crisis, or a pneumonia, or even simply lost your breath after a run, you would probably say it’s pretty bad. Suffocation is a nasty thing to experience. Drowning is often cited as one of the worst ways to die.
How long does an agony have to go on before it is too much? I bet even asking this question will seem sacrilegious to most. Any agony is too much, one may exclaim.
A trillion agonies, each by suffocation, each lasting for about ten minutes, is certainly way too much.
If something like this was happening every year, most people would probably say it is horribly bad. It would be horrifying to live in a world where people knew this is happening and they were indifferent. It would be even more horrifying to live in a world were suffocating someone to death was seen as a relaxing hobby.
It is estimated that between 1 trillion and 2.2 trillion fish are caught every year by the fishing industry. These fish can remain conscious for days underwater, trapped in the nets. When the nets are pulled up, it is estimated that it takes about 10 minutes for them to die by suffocation. For the larger species, it can take hours. Small-scale fishing is usually seen as a relaxing hobby.
If you find these stories awful (they barely scratch the surface, if you want to learn more, the documentary Dominion is available for free on YouTube and on the official website), please consider going vegan, reducing your meat and dairy intake (the best is to stop eating them for a full day once per week and then build up from there, but each person is different), or supporting charities that work on ending the worst practices in factory farming.
Some useful information on the vegan diet here. There are supplements specifically designed for vegans, notably for vitamin B12. For protein, the best I’ve personally found is tofu (I lift, so I need a lot of protein to maintain muscle mass), but there are many alternatives.
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