In such large numbers, chickens vent their stress and frustration by pecking at each other. To reduce losses, farmers use hot blades to slice off chicks' beaks just hours after the birds hatch. The procedure, which requires cutting through tender tissue similar to the flesh under human fingernails, is so painful that many chicks die of shock. Some die of starvation, when eating becomes too painful. Pigs are very clean animals who take to the mud primarily to cool off and evade flies.
Pigs are at least as intelligent as dogs and like dogs, are friendly and gregarious.
One hundred million pigs are killed for food every year in the U.S. Breeding pigs on factory farms are confined to stalls barely larger than their own bodies. Sometimes the stalls are stacked, and excrement from pigs in upper tiers falls on those below. The stench of ammonia is often overpowering even for farmers, who spend only minutes a day in the pig buildings. Lack of exercise causes pigs to become so weak that they can barely walk 50 yards. At the slaughterhouse, workers jab metal hooks into pigs' eyes, mouths, or rectums to force them to move faster.