When hens reach egg-laying age, they are crammed four to a wire cage the size of a record album cover. Crowding is so bad that the chickens cannot even stretch their wings. Sometimes cages sit on top of one another in tier fashion, with chicken excrement failing through the bottom of the cage onto the chickens in the cages below. Beef cattle begin life in the pasture, but are then sold to factory farmers. There they are crowded into fenced feedlots or confined to warehouses with automated feed and waste removal systems.
Exercise is minimized because it burns calories.
Bulls are castrated to produce a more fatty, hence more expensive grade of meat. Cattle are also subjected to dehorning, a painful process to avoid injuries to cattle in the very overcrowded feedlots. To give as much milk as possible, dairy cows are mechanically impregnated every year. As with other farm animals, they are confined to the smallest space possible. While Judaism stresses that we must seek and pursue peace and that violence results from unjust conditions, flesh centered diets, by wasting valuable resources, help to perpetuate the widespread hunger and poverty that eventually lead to instability and war.