What goes on behind the doors of a factory farm?

Now I shared the basic definition of factory farming, but I want to know what actually happens at a factory farm. I want to learn what happens to the animals, and what kind of consequences they experience everyday. Many animals I know go through this kind of treatment since the day they are born to the day they are killed. I've always wanted to research more about what happens to them, and this is a way I can let other people know what goes on as well.

First, people should know there are many different kinds of factory farms. For instance, chickens can be used for their egg production or for their meat. Cows can be used for their meat or for their milk. Hogs and other kinds of animals are mostly to be used for their meat.

Chickens and hens are raised in conditions that do not allow them to lie down, turn or extend their limbs or wings. When in confinement, chickens can be aggressive which can be fatal, so farmers end up debeaking the chickens. An egg ranch in California killed about thirty thousand hens that were no longer productive by throwing them into wood chippers. Broilers, chickens that are used for meat, live in huge pins forty feet wide by five hundred feet long that is holding approximately thirty thousand birds. The broiler birds are also given growth hormones, so the birds will have large thighs and breasts. It makes the bones so heavy that sometimes their bones can not even support them. The slaughtering process of the broiler chicken is absolutely horrific. They are hung by their feet on racks and pulled through a bath of electrified water to stun them. Keeping the birds alive is for the most desirable meat. After the stun bath, their necks are sliced to bleed them to death. Last, they are placed in scalding hot water to loosen their feathers. Three million of the seven million chickens killed in 1993 were put into the scalding tank of water alive (Morse 1).

These are only a few things that I have found so far. There are many others, and I will continue to post what I find as I go along in my research.

Morse, Sherry. "Mistreatment of Farm animals." Buzzle.com. 6 Nov 2010 <http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-2-2003-41131.asp>.