Imagine not being able to move, communicate or interact, but have to stand in your own feces, for a minimum of a year. CAFOs, also known as feedlots, are tightly confined areas where copious amounts of animals are held and fattened up for 12 to 15 months before being sent for slaughter. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that there are around 15,500 CAFOs in the United States alone. There are different types of feedlots, many of them abundant of pigs and cattle. Cattle CAFOs should be more closely monitored by the government because of the antibiotic resistance being built up by humans from the meat and the inhumane ways the animals are treated.
First off, the antibiotics used on the animals in CAFOs should …show more content…
Next, Michael Pollan, author, journalist and professor of journalism says, “By giving antibiotics to the millions of cattle in the U.S. we are actually breeding new super bacteria that can’t be killed by antibiotics” …show more content…
First, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) gave a closer look at how the animals in feedlots are treated, saying, "Many are tethered by chains or other materials around their necks in what are called "tie stalls"" and, "Dairy cows often have up to two-thirds of their tails removed without painkillers...The cows are also dehorned and/or disbudded...generally without painkillers" (“A Closer Look”). Although many people are unaware of this, most would be shocked and rightly so. Next, the ASPCA talks about the rates of animal that are injured, saying, "75% of downed animals-animals who cannot stand and walk on their own-are dairy cows" ("A Closer Look"). Imagine the quality of the cows milk if she can’t even stand up on her own. Pro CAFO advocates may argue that, "For many animals, domestication has been a winning strategy. Some people speak of animal liberation, but what would liberation mean to the millions of cows and chickens on our farms? It would mean a swift and unpleasant death, starvation, or attack by predators. And eventually it would mean the end of chickens, cattle, and many other domesticated species that at this point depend on us for their continued existence-depend, that is, on us eating them" (Pollan 223-224) Brian Shapiro, the New York Director for the Humane Society of the United