Other health effects of CAFO air emissions can be headaches, respiratory problems, eye irritation, nausea, weakness, and chest tightness. There is evidence that CAFOs affect the ambient air quality of a community.

Factory farms increase the risk of pathogens like E. coli and salmonella that cause food-borne illness in people. And bad practices on even a few factory farms can end up on everyone’s plate. Food-borne illness isn’t the only health threat from factory farms.

The model of factory farming has, over the years, been optimised to minimise costs and maximise profit. The advantages of this are that large supplies of meat can be produced and supplied very quickly, at very low cost, all year round. Automated processes also simplify work for farmers.

A global analysis conducted by Sentience Institute suggests over 90% of farmed animals worldwide live on factory farms. Medium-large factory farms, or CAFOs, in the U.S. generally consists of 1,000 beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 pigs, 55,000 turkeys, 30,000 egg-laying hens, or 125,000 broiler chickens.

100 million animals

750 million chickens

KFC admitted that a third of its chickens get painful inflammations, as well as a host of other ailments including heart and liver failure, because of poor conditions at it farms that supply its restaurants.

Why Are Male Chickens Not Suitable for Meat? It’s not so much that male chickens are not suitable for meat. It’s more so that it’s more economical for farms and poultry breeders to produce and sell female chickens for meat production. The chicken you see in supermarkets comes from “Broiler” chickens.

We continue to insist that our poultry is stunned before slaughter, using a technique called ‘stun-to-stun’. We only buy high quality, Grade A, farm-assured chicken from trustworthy suppliers, who are contractually required to meet or exceed all relevant UK and EU legislation and this will not change.