Originally Posted by Euphoric
Veal factories take newborn male calves away from their mothers one or two days after birth and chain them in wooden crates measuring only 22" wide and 58" long. Veal calves are usually kept in darkness, except to be fed two or three times a day for 20 minutes. This is where they will spend their entire lives, never seeing the sun.
Chained in the tiny crates, veal calves cannot walk, turn around, stretch their limbs, or lie down comfortably. Designed to prevent movement, the crate does its job of atrophying the calvesā?? muscles, thus producing tender gourmet veal. The calves often suffer from open sores caused by the constant rubbing against the crates. This severe confinement makes the calvesā?? meat tender since the animalsā?? muscles cannot develop.
Veal calves are deprived of drinking water, and all solid foods, so that they will gain weight drinking a large quantity of the high-fat, drug-laced liquid milk substitute. The feed is intentionally deficient in iron, fiber and other essential nutrients. It is intended to produce borderline anemia, which in turn makes the flesh of the calves pale-colored. The light color meat is considered desirable and gourmet in veal. That is, calves are kept anemic, solely because of the preference of flesh color. The severe anemia is the reason behind the wooden crates; craving iron, the calves lick urine-saturated slats and any metallic parts of their stalls.
Respiratory and intestinal diseases run rampant among veal calves, including chronic pneumonia and ā??scours,ā? or chronic diarrhea, and serious leg injuries are caused by a complete lack of straw or other bedding. Researchers have also reported that veal calves exhibit abnormal coping behaviors associated with frustration. These include head tossing, head shaking, kicking, scratching, and stereotypical chewing behavior. Confined calves also experience leg and joint disorders and an impaired ability to walk.
Veal factories attempt to counter the effects of intensive farming practices by administering a wide array of antibiotics and other chemicals. Scientific research actually indicates that calves confined in crates experience ā??chronic stressā? and require approximately five times more medication than calves living in more spacious conditions. This practice of drug administration represents a significant hazard to public health. The routine use of antibiotics in veal and other factory farm products is resulting in antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. These virulent bacteria render formerly life-saving antibiotics useless in combating human disease.
The high requirements for drugs for veal calves has led veal to be among the most likely meats to contain illegal drug residues, which pose a threat to human consumers. Federal agents have found more than a dozen veal companies giving calves clenbuterol, a dangerous and illegal drug that speeds growth and increases anemia in the calves. Even trace amounts of clenbuterol can cause severe illness in humans, including increased heart rate, tremors, breathing difficulties, fever and death.
About 14-20 weeks after their birth, veal calves are slaughtered. This is the fate of hundreds of thousands of veal calves every year in the United States.
In 1996, the European Union voted to ban the veal crate across Europe, phased-out over 10 years. By 2007, this cruel device will be illegal in all of Europe, yet it is still perfectly legal in the United States. .
