Tell the USDA factory farming isn't 'natural'!

Cows mutilated, fed unnatural diets, and crowded into filthy enclosures where they endure injury, stress, and disease.

Piglets separated from their mothers and crammed into dirty concrete pens where they will never see sunlight or breathe fresh air.

Chickens kept in windowless sheds and given growth-promoting hormones that cause them to grow super fast and suffer crippling leg disorders and heart failure.

These inhumane practices don't sound very natural, do they? Yet the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) allows producers to voluntarily put a "natural" label on meat and poultry products from animals raised in this manner.

The USDA makes no demands on producers to provide natural living conditions for the animals these products come from, which means "natural" products can come from animals raised on factory farms.

You can help change this - write to the USDA today!

The USDA is currently soliciting comments on how the "natural" label should be defined and applied to meat and poultry products. Please join us in sending your comments to the USDA to let them know that you think existing standards are not acceptable and that the "natural" claim should require what most people consider to be natural living conditions for farm animals - unrestricted access to fresh air, sunlight and the ability to perform natural behaviors.

The USDA is only accepting comments until November 13, 2009 so please submit your comments.

Thank you for taking action, and for your compassion and concern for animals everywhere.

Source: World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)

This is an ongoing pledge that should be fulfilled as often as possible.

Report close
You must be signed in to report content.

Comments, Suggestions and Stories

Julie van Niekerk Grasland, Ten Acres, SD @ 05:44AM PT Nov 20
Pledge fulfilled Nov 20, 2009!

Farm animals dont know that they can have a better life, but you and I know that. This is the difference between human and animals. We are the ones that know not to be cruel and inhumane towards animals. We know that is not fair unto them. We are the higher species and we should do all to protect. Why are we the savages then?
kristin bockus @ 11:24AM PT Nov 03

factory farming in not natural because the animals,they don't see a life of happiness as they should and they are not free to Rome around and enjoy the out doors and they don't live that long.
Chris Marie @ 06:51AM PT Oct 30

I am disgusted at the treatment of these living beings just to stuff our faces and fill our bellies. I don't think this is God's intention. Why is it okay to torture, mutilate and ultimately KILL these animals so that we can eat? People really need to start investigating where their food comes from and the conditions in which these animals are facing/living. It saddens me to think there are so many alternatives to eating animal meat but we continue on because "it tastes so good". The poor animals that give their lives so that we can eat are treated sooo unkind...why is that? It's money and greed. When people talk about compassion, they turn away from these animals because they don't really want to know what is going on, how the animals are treated...ignorance is what it is. There should be no more factory farming...these animals deserve to be outside, getting fresh air, eating natural grains, walking around not having their beaks broken, tortured, mutilated and then discarded. They do not get natural air or food...they are pumped with so many drugs it's just not natural. At the thought of another living creature being treated this way, the choice is simple for me - VEGETARIAN.
giovanni russo @ 06:47AM PT Oct 21

chichen and hens are very intelligent and sensible creatures, they gives us every day eggs, why don't thank them with a life free and happy,in this way they give us an egg more good and of high quality i can't believe human are so ingrate with so generous creatures
denise antinini @ 01:32PM PT Oct 20

j'aime les animaux en liberté et je suis vegan!
Rebecca Blackmore Athens, OH @ 09:59AM PT Oct 20

No matter what species the creature is, we are all gods children. I have always believed in the "Universal Law", whether one is religious or not. It is knowing within ones self what is right and wrong. This law spans across the whole universe and beyound. This abuse, this greed that fuels this continued abuse, the lack of respect for nature... it is wrong, it is evil.
K J North Ridgeville, OH @ 07:06AM PT Oct 20
Pledge fulfilled Oct 19, 2009!

Laurie Sickles and Samantha Pulsford -- I couldn't agree with you more! Although I wish that NO animal be killed for food, regardless in a factory farm or not........ and until that day happens, all farm factories should be closed down immediately! Farm factories are NOTHING LESS than a living hell on earth for animals.

It makes me sick to my stomach when I read about factory farm cruelty, and my heart just aches for those animals. I wish on every star in the universe to end all animal cruelty. Animals deserve so much of a better quality of life. And I will continue to fight until they have one.
Laurie Sickles @ 12:50AM PT Oct 20

No animal deserves to be abused or neglected no matter what. Just because and animal is being raised for food doesn't mean that it shouldn't live a comfortable life until then and animals also deserve a more humane way to be slaughtered.

Factory farming is also dirty and filled with disease. Local farms raise natural, clean and healthy food animals. It also keeps farmers and families together and in business instead of factory farming that is unhealthy, puts small farmers out of business, lines the pockets of greedy people who have no conscious about what they are doing.
Samantha Pulsford Melbourne, MD @ 11:49PM PT Oct 19

I am totally against factory farming. I think it's the biggest evil in the world today. I often can't believe it even goes on. It also amazes me how many people don't even know about it and where their meat comes from. You look in the eyes of an intelligent animal like a pig(proven to be as cognitively intelligent as some three year olds) and you can almost see them saying 'why are you doing this to me'? History shows us that,unfortunately, most people turn a blind eye to suffering and evil--lets all work together to end factory farming-we can do it!
Anna Slomka @ 11:11PM PT Oct 19

I feel that is not right do something cruel to living creature, they are deserve to live happy and without pain, just like us