{Want more info?  Read the previous post introducing Earthlings}

We would all like to think that we are getting our dinner from humane sources.  Animals aren't actually killed that brutally are they?  They aren't actually skinned alive and boiled alive and kicked and castrated and plucked and stuffed into the smallest of spaces for us are they?  I knew a lot about the food-animal industry, and yet I sat in ignorant silence next to my friend Abby for minutes after the movie.  We wiped our tears away and looked at each other.  To break the silence, and because I am the most awkward person, I said, "well, at least we aren't contributing to this.." To that she said, "But, we aren't doing enough to stop it."

Her response got me thinking, what can be done about the billions of animals that die to over stuff our bellies?  Hopefully by the end of this mini series, I will have some answers for you.  Until then, here is Part 2: Food

This section started with a hidden video from a slaughterhouse in which a worker was walking around shooting pigs with a metal bolt to the skull.  He was going around to them all and proclaiming in the creepiest voice imaginable, where each syllable was drawn out, "I got youuu..." For anyone wondering, many many times, because this practice is done so quickly, the bolt does not deliver a killing blow.  Instead the animal is left seizing on the ground, bleeding to death while all the other animals rush to its side.
Cows

• Cows are devotional mothers and are known to walk for miles to find their calves.

• Cattle like to sleep close to their families.

• Cattle get excited when they solve problems. When faced with a challenge of finding out how to open a door to reach food, their heartbeat went up, their brainwaves showed excitement, and some even jumped into the air.

Cows are killed in various ways; a bolt to the head, electric shock, and even hanging them up and slitting their throats to bleed them out.
Pigs

• Pigs are extremely social animals. They form close bonds with other individuals and love close contact and lying down together. 

• Pigs are very peaceful animals, rarely showing aggression. The exception, as with many animals, is when a mother (sow) with her young offspring is provoked or threatened.

• Winston Churchill famously said that “Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal.”

 Pigs are slaughtered in the same ways as cows are.  Sows are kept in gestation crates for years until they can no longer produce piglets and are slaughtered.  More on gestation crates in my post about the MadCity VegFest.
Chickens

• Scientists have shown that mother hens display signs of empathy for their baby chicks.

• Like other birds and mammals, chickens experience REM sleep, which is associated with dreaming.

• The chicken is the closest living relative to the great Tyrannosaurus-Rex.

Over 8 Billion Birds are slaughtered each fucking WEEK.  Each.Week.  During one hidden video clip where workers clubbed turkeys to death, Abby (through the gaps between her fingers,) stuttered, "It's like they're having fun!!"
 Dolphins

• Dolphins are altruistic animals. They are known to stay and help injured individuals, even helping them to the surface to breath. Their compassion also extends across the species-barrier. There are many accounts of dolphins helping humans and even whales.

• Dolphins have several highly developed forms of communication. They have a “signature whistle” which allows other individuals to recognize them.

 In a clip from Earthlings, dozens of dolphins in a warehouse in Japan stabbed in their throats, convulsing as school children walked feet from them on their way to their homes.

These facts brought to you from One Kind.

Yes, there are so many other animals killed for human consumption; goats, fish, shrimp and other seafood, veal, turkeys....

As Paul McCartney once said, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian."