Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and you're listening to The Vegan Report.
If you're vegan for the animals and you care to do more for animal rights, but you're not sure
where to start, then this podcast is for you. Every week, let yourself fall in love with
passionate animal rights leaders who will inspire you to find your voice, your own special
contribution to the animal rights movement, however small or big it is. Today we are going
to talk about slaughterhouses. Usually you can easily trace back the origins of the food in your
supermarket. This could be said about legumes or fruits, but what about animal products?
The truth is, most people don't know what happens inside a slaughterhouse. I bet most of you, just
like me, never visited one. And it's no surprise those factories are located in remote places,
they don't have any windows, and the rules about who gets in are very strict. Most of what we know
about slaughterhouses comes from the work of activists who take undercover footage of the
inside. Today I want to offer you a conversation with someone who has worked for a slaughterhouse,
but also for farms and ranches. His name is Colin, and he generously accepted to share what he
witnessed from working for the animal industry. Colin grew up in a family-owned ranch of about
50 heads of cattle. He actively worked to take care of the ranch during his youth.
Later, he got an undergraduate degree in animal sciences from Colorado State University.
While there, he focused on beef systems, taking classes with the famous lecturer Temple Grindon,
in addition to meat sciences, carcass analysis, humane animal handling classes, and more.
While in college, he visited various slaughterhouses, dairy factories, small ranches,
and got a good look at the inner workings of those facilities. This landed him a job working
for large animals, vets, who specialize in artificial insemination. And a certain experience
at that job made him embrace ethical veganism. And during the conversation, he openly talks about
that experience. Shortly after, he did a master in microbiology and is now employed by the health
sector. Hi, Colin, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I wanted to start by
asking you, what is exactly the difference between a ranch, a farm, a slaughterhouse? What do we mean
by animal factories? What is this whole animal industry about? Yeah, that's a great question.
I think a lot of people get very confused on what the difference is between even like a farm,
a ranch, or what the finishing phase with a lot of animals like a feedlot. And if you're not
if you're not familiar with the industry, you're probably going to think they're all on all in one
facility. And there is some overlap with a lot of them. Farming tends to be a lot more just kind of
plant agriculture based. They don't really tend to deal with a lot of livestock. That's not to say
that they don't. They may certainly have their, you know, their backyard chickens, or a few sheep,
or few goats, whatever here and there. But they tend to focus more on crops. And they don't tend
to focus on one specific thing, generally. Whereas a ranch, majority of ranchers tend to have one
primary focus. And again, that isn't to say that you won't have somebody who has, you know, X
amount of cattle, and they don't have a few chickens, they might have some chickens as well,
but primarily their focus is going to be one animal. And they're going to stick to that,
and they don't really rotate. They don't really change things up. And then within that, you know,
you'll have certain things like feedlots, which is, this is not necessarily the same that goes on
throughout the whole world. The finishing phase with, at least with cattle, is it's a very, very,
I think, North American thing, you know, this happens a lot in Canada, too. But a feedlot will
be something that you send your cow to towards the finishing stages of its production cycle.
And you typically will feed it like a high grain diet. This has a lot of purposes, it'll
be used to convert like a yellow fat to a white marbled fat, which is a little bit more,
which appeals more to like the North American palette. You know, you'll notice a lot of,
for instance, Europeans, when they come over to the United States, they'll note that the
meat tastes significantly different. Same thing when Americans go to Australia, Europe, Asia,
the meat, they'll describe the meat as having a gamey taste. And that's because oftentimes,
the animals in those countries aren't fed a high grain diet at the very end of their life cycle.
So that's kind of what a feedlot will do. And then a slaughterhouse is going to be a lot more
where you actually process the animal, where you actually stun it, kill it, open it up. That's
where you'll have your carcass evaluations. That's a very, very common thing is you'll have somebody
actually evaluate the carcass, they'll grade the meat, they'll determine if it is acceptable for
human consumption. You know, and then oftentimes from there, they'll use that as a basis for
compensation to the producer. The carcass evaluation specifically is a very, very
key factor for that. So, yeah.
Farms in terms of business model grow crops, this is the main economical activity. And then
ranches, they have the livestock, and the slaughterhouse is at the end of the whole process
when the animal is slaughtered. And the farms, you know, most of the crops go to the farm animals,
to feeding farm animals. I think that 90% of all our agriculture is food for livestock, and only
10% or something like that goes to human consumption. Have you noticed that? Have you observed that?
Yeah, actually, that's very, very true. I've heard a lot of people, for instance, it's
one of the main arguments I've heard a lot of people say against veganism, they'll say something
along the lines of, well, you know, the majority of the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed to
grow soy. And says, yeah, that's true. But the majority of that soy is going to feed livestock.
And, you know, and that's one of those, you know, reoccurring arguments I've always heard against,
like the vegan diet, a lot of people will say, well, you know, we use a lot of soy and you can't,
you know, convert, you know, you can't convert certain land to feed animal, you know,
for crops to feed people, you need meat to use that land says, well, yeah, but we managed to still
feed 80 billion livestock throughout the world a year. And we do do that through
crops. So we certainly grow enough food to feed everyone if we're able to feed a lot of the
livestock, because we're, when you think about a cow, you know, a cow will weigh, the average
human probably weighs 150 pounds, you know, 75 kilograms, whereas you'll have a cow that they
weigh anywhere between 800 to 1200 pounds. I mean, they're, they're oftentimes, you know,
eight, nine, 10, the size of a human, that is a lot of food they got to eat. Yeah. And they're
eating all crops. So a lot of food and a lot of water to yes, water. And there's also a lot of
water runoff as a result, a lot of fecal material ends up getting washed into the water system,
gets drained in the lakes, rivers, streams. And then, yeah, just the animals themselves have to
consume a lot of water. That's a big environmental impact. Oh, absolutely massive. When you actually
look at some of the drought problems we have here, you'll notice that for instance, like the
Colorado River out west, it's, it's a lot of water, and it's a lot of water, and it's a lot of
it's going completely empty some years, if you look at the Hoover Dam, these years, you know,
it used to be filled all the way to the top. Now it's filled very, very low, because water levels
are getting low. And now you have to supply water, not only to people and supply their homes,
but we also have to keep the livestock going. Because if you can't give water to your livestock,
you then need to cull the entire, you know, population. So yeah, water consumption is
an extremely large factor that is a huge contributor to what goes into animal agriculture.
It's very surprising, especially if you end up looking at what it takes to produce a gallon of
milk versus a gallon of, you know, a milk alternative, even the the crops like almonds,
which also use a large amount of water as in regards to milk alternatives, it's still very
much lower than a regular standard gallon of cow's milk. So going back to all of those facilities,
I've been in I've visited plenty of farms. And I think most people have visited farms,
but I never visited a ranch. So what is it like to visit a ranch? My only reference is that
TV series called Yellowstone. So how is it like to visit a ranch?
I actually really like ranches. For me, they're quite a bit of fun. There are a lot of ranches
that at least what I tend to work with, or what I used to work with, they're smaller facilities.
You know, typically they'll have maybe 100 head of cattle, they're typically family owned and
operated. For the most part, they may have some outside help. And that is a big chunk of my
childhood. So whenever I go see a ranch, you know, it always brings me back to the days when I was
running around in the field and hanging out with the dogs and getting chased by, you know, cows
when I was running through on a three wheeler. But I think that's not the only type of situation
you run into. There are a lot of very, very industrial, large ranches that are very business
operated. They're very, I wouldn't say structured, but yes, they're a little bit more organized and
structured and it is a business model and it doesn't have that same, you know, you alluded to
that show Yellowstone. I haven't seen that. But a lot of ranches are very much like that.
I presume. I think it has that like family owned and operated type small cowboy yeehaw type thing
going on. And so that there is certainly a lot of that. But there are also a lot of places that are,
you know, it's a regular nine to five job, you know, and from an outward appearance, you probably
wouldn't see, you wouldn't look at it and see anything that's bothersome. But when you start
getting into the nitty gritty of it, you do even on smaller operations, you do start seeing things
that are a little bothersome, especially once you're familiar with it. And it's kind of
interesting when you talk with ranchers and you work with them, to them it's just, you know,
just typical Saturday and you're sitting there like, well, do we really need to do this to the cow or
to the sheep or to anything else? But, you know, it's, I always have mixed feelings about ranches.
You know, like I said, it's something that brings me back to my childhood. It's
something I'm used to. But being on the vegan side of things, I also have to look at them and it's
kind of, you know, like going to a, just a, a, you know, like, you know, like, you know,
just a place of cruelty. So it's, it's, it's a very strange feeling, I guess, for me. Yeah.
And what about the most inaccessible place, slaughterhouses? What is it like to
enter in one of those facilities? What is the, is it, is it enormous? Is it obscure? Is it how,
just describe it for me. Those are, they're very, they are very, very large. It is a,
it is a factory type setting. It has a very certain distinct odor, obviously, you know,
it will smell like blood. It will smell like very unwelcoming smell. And you do notice as the animals
going through the process, I mean, it, to me, it's almost like something out of a horror film. If you
go down the entire line from start to finish from when the animal is slaughtered, and then they,
you know, will get hung up on hooks. And then, you know, just as if it is, I mean, it's just a job
for the people working, but it's very interesting to see somebody in like, you know, coveralls,
and then they, you know, cut open the animal, and they gut it. And then it goes down the line. And
then you have a machine that like, the gloves, it rips the skin off. And then, you know, it just,
it just going down the line. And then you'll see a large line of workers with essentially table
saws, and they're cutting pieces off, flanks and preparing it. And I don't know if you've,
how much news you followed with in the industry, but you'll see that there,
you'll see that there's a lot of, it's very clear that there's a lot of migrant workers.
And it's, you will, you know, you don't ask a million questions, but you do know that there's
a lot of bad employment practices going on. I'm not sure if you notice there was a story very,
very recently where a cleaning facility and Tyson Foods, and I think JBS has well gotten a lot of
trouble for having underage cleaners in the middle of the night. This is a large facility in Nebraska.
And, you know, again, you don't ask these types of questions, but you kind of, when you look at
people working, you can kind of see that that's what's going on. So it, to me personally, it
feels a little bit like what you would see in a horror movie. It's got a very dark, the lighting
is not very good. In my opinion, it's not, it's not a bright, sunny place. That's for sure. It's
definitely something that reminds me of a horror film.
And what you mentioned about the workers, that's an area where you have vegan activists, animal
activists, animal rights activists, and social justice activists. And there's this intersection
between the two because I've seen organizations like Oxfam, who will advocate for the rights of
those workers, you know, working in those slaughterhouses because of the bad working conditions.
And you mentioned Tyson, that's one of the worst. I guess there are not a lot of players in that
industry. No, there's there's a lot of very, you know, there's I think maybe like five really big
companies, and it changes from time to time. JBS, I think is the largest right now. And when they
entered the US market, they went and bought like the third and fourth largest. And then they
and then they essentially just shot up to the largest producer here in the United States.
But yeah, Tyson's a really big one. Cargill is a huge one. Those I would say are probably like the
three major ones. And they're constantly in trouble for something. I guess it doesn't really
matter if you know, you just pay the fine that comes your way and then keep doing what you're
doing. So now, I want to talk about the different animal species and how they are exploited in
in this industry. Basically, I want to know what they go through inside those farms and then
or ranches, and of course, slaughterhouses. And I have prepared some notes with some
information to give listeners on every one of those animal species because most people don't
interact with living farm animals, you are one exception. But, you know, they live far away from
rural areas of or they have no interest for interacting with farm animals. And so people
have many misconceptions about farm animals. And there are even plenty of people who don't consider
farm animals to even be sentient. So let's start maybe with cows. And I have this article I'm
looking at my notes from World Animal Protection. And they say, you know, cattle are naturally
curious, clever, and even fun loving. In research studies, they have been trained to follow sound,
to find food in the maze. They are also known to love playing. You mentioned how you played with
cows in your ranch. When given the space, they will run with each other, play chase and enjoy
toying with the ball. They also say, let's see, cows have different personalities, some cows are
bolder and more exploratory than others, they are more likely to explore a new object in their field
compared with others who might be shy and less curious. Cows can make friends, they can form
social bonds with other cows and feel stressed when separated from their preferred partners. Cows
have also different vocalizations, which differ, you know, according to their emotional state. So
when feeling negative emotions, a cow vocalizations are longer and higher pitch. When cows feel more
positive, they vocalize less, and their vocalizations are shorter with a lower pitch.
Cows have a pain phase, which means that their micro facial expressions can show
when they are in pain, these expressions can be reliably assessed to determine how much pain a cow
is in following, let's say, a procedure. They have also developed softwares that
can track the facial expressions of cows to determine what emotions they are feeling,
including aggressive, neutral, calm and excited. So this is a very complex being. Would you like
to add something or a comment on one of the points that I read?
Yeah, I mean, I mean, just the whole thing in general, you know, they are incredibly curious
animals. They're much more intelligent than I think people give credit for. And you were talking
about them playing, you know, they play with balls, they will roam. They remind me very much of a dog.
You know, they're just as friendly, just as playful. And I had a cow. And when I was
a when I was younger, we had this cow, Sally. And she was, you know, like a dog. She really was,
you know, you always have this generalization with dogs that when you come home, they're all
excited to see you. They're wagging their tail. And that was Sally, I would come home from school
and she would run right up to the fence. And she was happy. And you know, perhaps she just thought
I was going to give her, you know, a treat or pat her on the head or something. But they are
incredibly curious and very aware animals. They're not, you know, they're not stupid, by any means.
And you can tell when they're when they're stressed, you can tell when they're worried,
they have looks on their face. You know, same things when they're curious, if you're going
somewhere and you're investigating, they'll they'll all follow you. And they'll they'll give you a nice
little stare and kind of, you know, try and figure out what you're doing. So pretty much your
description that you just read off of your notes is is very on point. I was not totally familiar with
the I'm not surprised by it. I think I had heard that somewhere else. But the unique vocalizations,
that was actually something I had not really either maybe I just never paid attention or
I'm not surprised. And they do form special bonds. You do see certain ones hanging out with each
other each day. When one of them goes missing, you can tell they're missing their friend.
They're very social creatures. I have a very special place in my heart for cows because they,
you know, they are like dogs to me.
And it's weird because, you know, we use words like vocalizations, but it's a voice.
I mean, they have different voices and they're using them. Anyway, so what is the fate of cows
in the animal industry?
Ultimately, it is slaughter period. It doesn't matter if it's a dairy cow or a beef cow. The
way that they end up getting there might be a little bit different. But ultimately, that is
the same thing. This is one of those things that I think a lot of people, there's a lot of
misconceptions about this, particularly with dairy cows that people don't seem to understand.
But dairy cows do end up getting slaughtered as well for me. And what ends up happening is
they will get sent to slaughter under two conditions. One, if they're male,
and I'll get more into that later, but female cows, the primary goal with them when they're in your
herd is to breed them. You need them to breed. If they don't breed, they're useless. Essentially,
it's one more mouth to feed. So with a beef operation, you know, that's the primary goal.
You may make an exception, you know, the first year, if a first year heifer
being a young cow, essentially, that hasn't been bred before. If they don't get bred on the first
try, you may give them a chance. If they've been a cow that has bred, you know, four years in a row,
and then for whatever reason, you know, a year, they don't get pregnant, you might give them a
second chance. But generally, once they've hit, you know, over four or five years old,
or if they have two years in a row that they don't breed, you send them to slaughter,
because you are, you know, one of the largest, at the end of it is a business. And the largest
cost for producer is food. If you're not producing another cow, you're feeding another cow, that's
eating into your bottom line, you're making less money. So you do need to send them to slaughter.
And it's the same thing with, you know, the
dairy cows. I think a lot of people think that dairy cows just make milk, like magically, there's
no process involved. But just like all mammals, in order for them to produce milk, they do need
to get pregnant. There's a hormone that some people might be familiar with as like the mothering
hormone called oxytocin. But oxytocin is a hormone that's used to produce milk, and it's
a hormone called oxytocin. But oxytocin is also a smooth muscle relaxer for the mammary glands,
and it's responsible for milk letdown with pregnancy. If they don't get pregnant, they
don't produce milk. They don't produce milk. Are they useful to a dairy farmer? Probably not.
So no matter what, once they've outlived their usefulness, they get sent to slaughter.
Now it's going to be, you might have a few differences between operations of the longevity
and how they actually get there. But for a beef cow, typically, they'll be born. And
the male cows, the first year, well, they typically get sent to slaughter once they reach a certain
weight. But they're always generally castrated. You don't want them breeding with your cows. You
typically will use artificial insemination, and then you'll keep a couple bulls on site to kind
of clean up because artificial insemination is only about 65%, maybe 70% effective. So these
clean up bulls will finish off the others that don't get pregnant. So those males that do get
castrated, they essentially get sent to slaughter as soon as it's good for the market. You can get
the best money for it. Winter comes, you don't have grass on the field. You have to supplement
feed. You're going to get rid of them. Again, one less mouth to feed. The female cows, you will
attempt to continuously breed them throughout the cycle throughout the years until they stop
producing. Once the cow is ready to go, they will get sent to the feed lots. And they'll stay there
on a really high grain diet. As I mentioned, this is kind of the finishing phase, you know, to
convert the fat in the animal. You can only do that for a certain amount of time. One, grain
costs money. Two, if you keep them on a high grain diet for too long, they can actually get
ruptures in their rumen of their stomach. And that can lead to liver problems, ketoacidosis, just a
number of diseases. So you keep them on this high grain diet for a few months, you know, maybe up
to six months, it depends. And then based on the market demands, you'll send them to a slaughterhouse.
The slaughterhouse and the packaging house, that is kind of the bottleneck in the industry. They
kind of control all the prices, essentially. So your choice of when to send an animal to slaughter
is going to be based very, very much on what they are deciding. Because they're controlling the
price, they're controlling supply and demand. So you're going to always try and get the best,
most amount of money for your cow. So that's going to drive the thing. So dairy cows are kind of
essentially the same thing. Once they stop producing milk, they go through the same process. So they
can go to a feedlot. I believe it's less than maybe five or 10% of cows that are grass fed. I know
that's a big marketing thing. And those are cows that are generally not sent to a feedlot. That's
why they'll tend to have a little bit more of like a it's described as a gamey taste, you know, like,
dim like beer, or the type of meat that you would get in Europe or Australia or New Zealand doesn't
have the same flavor. But that's why they're grass fed. And that's just a very small portion.
And the cows that are producing milk, first of all, all of that breeding process, this must be
very taxing on their bodies. Have you seen those? You know, what are the conditions, their health
conditions after all of that process of continuously getting impregnated?
Um, it certainly takes a toll on them. But I don't think that it really produces particularly
long term health conditions, not because it's not bad for them. But the average lifespan of these cows
is maybe four or five years. I think if you were to continuously try and breed them for, you know,
1015 years, you would start to see some very serious health issues. But because they do end
up having a shorter lifespan, I just don't think that that really develops to the point of making
them have very serious or at least noticeable health benefits. Or health problems. Yeah, they
they certainly do. I'm sure they get, you know, ruptures in their pelvic cavity. You know, you can
have complications. But I think a lot of those complications are mitigated by breeding practices.
I know there used to be a lot of issues with dystocia, which is essentially the fetus is,
or is either too large, or it's in an awkward position. This has been kind of, and that that
would cause a lot of health problems, a lot of excess bleeding, a lot of damage just to the cow.
The reason for that was that in years past, the industry was very, or at least producers were
very, very focused on having a very high birthing weight. A thought process being if you have a high
birthing weight, then they will get up to a higher weight by the time you send them to slaughter.
But what they were finding is that they would have to they would have these really, really large cows,
calves growing in the bellies of their moms. And then when it came time to give birth,
they're having dystocia and they couldn't actually push them through the canals.
You would have to get a worker or rancher to go out there in the middle of a night on a cold February
and help the cow actually get pulled, get pulled a calf from the cow.
So what they started doing is they've started focusing their breeding goals on having lower
body weights for the calves in order to prevent these issues with dystocia. So like I said,
there are certainly health issues. A lot of those have been mitigated by breeding for smaller birthing
weights. But yeah, I'm sure those issues continue if you kept breeding them. And what about the milk?
The milk is supposed to go to the baby. And we're taking the milk. How does that happen? I guess the
baby is separated from the mother. And then what happens to the baby? Does the mother react to that
separation? Could you tell us about that? The mothers are extremely upset. You will see them
following the vehicle. Like if you put the calf into a car or into the back of a truck, you'll
see the mothers chase after it. They will cry out for their child. They are extremely upset.
When you were talking earlier about them bonding and them having just these emotions,
it's actually really quite heartbreaking to see that. And I'm sure if you monitored those cows
for a long time, you would see a lot of really just upset cows. Isolated, not social, because
they've had their child taken from them. And the calves, perhaps they're young, they're not quite
as aware, but you can tell they're also missing something. If you ever go to one of the areas
where they keep the calves after they're separated from the mother, they keep them chained up.
They almost look like dog houses. They're essentially just these little pins. And
I wish I had sent you some pictures before we actually started this meeting. I have some
pictures of little calves. They're sucking on my fingers. They want their mother's
feet so that they can feed. You can tell that they're very upset about it.
And I think you were at, and I don't think people, this is another one of the downsides with the
dairy industry that I think a lot of people are just completely unaware of. This is why veal exists.
When you take the calf from its mom, you have to do something with that calf.
You send it for veal. You slaughter it at a very young age. What is veal? Veal is essentially baby
calf. It's a very, very tender meat. Yes. Yeah. Some people love it, but it is a by-product of
the dairy industry because you have to get rid of those calves somehow. If you can't let them feed
on their mother's milk, then you have to do something. They're not going to survive anyway.
Not likely. I mean, you could essentially give them something supplemental, but a lot of the,
I'm going to call them immunoglobulins. A lot of the things that you get for your immune system,
you get as a baby from your mother. These cows are being deprived of that, so they are much more
susceptible to diseases. You could theoretically give them something to supplement that, but it's
still not going to be as good. You're still going to have health issues. Yeah, they're likely to
not survive, or if they do survive, they're not going to be very healthy.
Did you have anything more to say about cows? No. I went very long with cows. As you can tell,
I like cows a lot. Well, then let's go to chickens, which I think is one of the most common
farm animals. Again, an article from World Animal Protection, chickens can be very dangerous.
Again, an article from World Animal Protection, chickens can recognize up to a hundred faces.
Chickens dream, similar to dogs and cats, who may act like they're chasing something while asleep.
Chickens also have vivid dreams. Chickens pass down information.
So chickens pass down knowledge from generation to generation, if given the chance. This one is
really heartwarming. Chickens chirp to their eggs, and you'll even hear the babies chirp back.
Babies chirp back. They also make around 30 different calls to communicate with each other,
expressing everything from things for the food to there is a predator in the coop.
Also, chickens have great memory. They can solve puzzles by picking the pieces with their beaks
to let their human helpers know which one goes where. So there were experiments made around that.
Another one, which is cute, chickens purr. They will purr like cats. And I know those facts
surprise people because I think chickens have this image of being very stupid creatures.
But yet, if you kept a chicken in your backyard or something like that,
every one of those facts about chickens, you would find them to be true.
So what kind of treatment chickens experience in the animal industry?
Chicken, I think sometimes, and again, this isn't, chickens aren't something that I've worked a lot
with, but chickens, oftentimes, are in very, very large scale operations. And I don't know if you
ever heard about, oftentimes, chickens are, they have their beaks removed. Yeah, because they,
they will kind of go crazy because they're in these very tight cramped facilities. And they will
essentially go mentally insane and start attacking one another. So they preemptively will remove a
lot of their beaks in many cases. They are put into just these really tight confined areas. They're
not really allowed to move around. You know, I've, I've heard frequently of chickens being
bred to be so large that they literally physically cannot walk. Because again,
this industry is driven by money. So you're trying to get the most meat off of the animal as you can.
You know, and, and chickens are just, I think, probably in just some of the some of the worst
conditions. And even, you know, there's a lot of marketing terms like, you know,
you know, there's a lot of marketing terms like free range, which I had a I was very unaware of
this at the time, because I hadn't had a lot of experience with chickens. But I remember
talking with a professor of mine in college. And he was one of the main professors he read,
ran one of my livestock courses. And he basically said, you know, the term free range,
like you do know that this is kind of essentially just, yes. You know, it all that essentially
means is that you can just open a door. And if you leave the food inside, the chicken not going
outside. But that's all free range really essentially means it's kind of a misnomer to sell more food.
Yeah, I, I'm always amazed at just how kind of bottom of the totem pole chickens are treated.
You know, and it's, it's really, it's kind of interesting when you think about like, how far
we've come with them on a genetic basis. You know, chickens aren't meant to have an egg every single
day. They're meant to produce maybe, you know, a
15 to 20 a year, you know, one or two a month. And we've just created these absolute genetic
monsters that are so incredibly unhealthy. I'm sure they feel absolutely disgusting. And they're
kept in very, very hot, just disgusting rodent infested, you know, feces filled facilities.
Yeah. Yeah. And every activity involving, you know, chickens, I mentioned getting chickens in
your backyard. Don't do that. Okay. This is something, you know, in rural cities, you will
find that even in big cities, you find people who will keep chickens in their backyard. And it's a
horrible, horrible activity, you know, because first of all, there are a lot of farmers who will
sell you a rooster instead of a chicken. And you won't notice until the last minute and then you
have to get rid of those roosters. Because in many cities, it is forbidden to have roosters, they
do a lot of noise pollution. And then they stop producing egg and people want to get rid of them
after maybe a year or two. Because why would I keep a chicken in my backyard if the chicken is not
giving egg and farmers will not take them? Always take them. Because there are some rules concerning,
you know, sicknesses and stuff. Not to have, you know, to have a contamination from an outside
chicken. And it's just a big, big mess. And I don't understand why it is allowed.
Yes. Yeah, it's, you know, speaking on what you're talking about with roosters,
you know, roosters are extremely, they can be extremely aggressive. Their meat isn't particularly
tasty. So you don't really want to slaughter them for food. So and as a result of that, even if
you're getting, you know, your backyard chickens, you think, oh, it's cruelty free, it's cute, it's,
you know, they're running around and they're maybe eating the bugs and keeping the garden clean and
everything. And yeah, that might be the case with the chickens. But, you know, about 50% of what they
give birth to is a rooster. So as a result of that, I think a lot of people are unaware that
when people when chickens are getting sexed, when they're born, somebody looks at them.
And, you know, pull some feathers aside. They have very, very good eyes for this, but they detect
which ones are the males, and they throw them into a wood chipper. I mean, the male chickens are just
shredded to pieces from day one. And I don't think people realize that that's the 50% of the chicken
population. So even if you're going with the backyard chicken thing, you're still killing a
lot of chickens from the get go. Yes. From the start, before you even purchase that chicken,
for every one, you know, chicken you've purchased, another one has already died.
And I think, you know, even then, we've had a lot of issues with disease outbreaks. I do definitely
foresee the, I wouldn't be surprised if one of these days, there's a city that does allow
backyard chickens that says that we need to, you know, everybody who has a chicken, you need to call
them, because we have a huge avian influenza outbreak. You know, a lot of these larger chicken
facilities are, you know, huge, you know, areas where these diseases can proliferate. And that
will absolutely spread into these neighborhood backyard chickens. And, you know, I've heard some
instances of avian influenza jumping from poultry to humans. I think as time goes on, we're going to
see more and more cases of that. And we're going to see a lot of instances where that happens,
where people do have backyard chickens. I think it's going to be a huge, huge thing.
Yes. And then of course, they will have to get rid of them. Not in the most human way.
If there is no, no, I've, they, they burn them alive, they drown them in foam. They do all sorts
of just, because you have to kill, you know, countless numbers of chickens. So they do it in
the most economically feasible way possible, you know, and that's often by flooding. I think the
most common way to do a mass calling is they will flood it with the, with foam that firefighters use.
I can't imagine that's, that can't be very enjoyable for the chickens, I'm sure. But
yeah, it happens.
So let's go to now pigs, which is maybe the most, an interesting case. And every time,
you know, people talk about being vegetarian or vegan, they will often say, but bacon, bacon,
bacon is so good. So again, this is from World Animal Protection. Pigs are very clean animals.
And this goes against popular wisdom. In fact, there are some of the cleanest animals around and
refuse to defecate where they sleep and eat if given the choice. Even newborn piglets will leave
their sleeping areas to relieve their hunger. And they will also be able to eat their food.
So even if a pig is trying to defecate on the grass, the Ricotta is able to eat the goings
to the grass to relieve themselves. That is a very surprising fact. Even puppies
don't go that far. I mean, you have to train your dog to go out and do its business.
Pigs can sweat, you know, sweating like a pig is another misleading and commonly used phrase.
glands so they roll around and sleep in mud and swim in water to keep cool.
And a bonus to rolling in mud, it helps keep a pig's skin from getting sunburned because
a pig's skin is very sensitive.
Pigs are smarter than your dog.
Pigs have the intelligence of a human toddler and are ranked as the fifth most intelligent
animal in the world.
In fact, pigs are more intelligent and trainable than any breed of dog.
They learn their names in just two weeks and come when they're called.
Pigs even are capable of playing video games better than some primates.
Mother pigs sing to their babies.
This is one of the swithest facts about pigs.
Mother pigs sing to the babies while nursing.
Pigs have an excellent sense of direction.
They're good navigators.
They can find their way home over large distances.
They can often trot long distances and can reach up to 11 miles per hour running.
Pigs dreams and like to sleep nose to nose.
Pigs love to stay connected with each other by sleeping close together, often making sure
to touch their friends while they drift off.
Pigs also have excellent memories, especially when it comes to object location.
If they find a great spot, they'll remember to look at the great spot again even after
a week or weeks.
So how do we treat pigs in the animal industry?
Pigs are one of the most surprising things that I had always seen with pig facilities
I've been on is they are kept in very tiny confined areas.
And I think the justification is generally that you don't want the mother to roll over
onto the piglets as they're feeding.
They are, pigs are one of the surprising ones because people often talk about animal intelligence.
And for some odd reason, I've seen that people seem to want to almost be just very cruel
to them.
I've seen people kind of kick at them.
Often there's a lot of issues with them getting a lot of electro prods and shocks.
And this may very well be in part due to their intelligence.
Maybe they're a little bit more likely to get themselves into trouble, try and get through
gates, try and cause a little bit of a ruckus.
But pigs are just, the most heartbreaking thing really is to see these pigs in these
really tiny confined areas.
They basically have to lay down their entire lives.
Your male breeding pigs might have a little bit more freedom to roam around.
But again, they're going to try and they might cause some ruckus.
So there's a little bit more limitations, but the mothers are, they're essentially pinned
down.
They get very limited movement.
That's probably to me one of the most heartbreaking things I've seen with these animals, especially
when you consider how intelligent and inquisitive they can be.
They're extremely curious.
And I don't know how we can limit them like that.
Yeah.
Smarter than a dog.
Yeah.
And I don't think necessarily that how intelligent an animal is should determine whether or not
cruel to it, not by any means.
But we use pigs are notoriously well known for finding truffles.
As you said, you know, they have well developed noses.
They're easier to train than dogs.
They can do more things.
It's actually kind of surprising that we don't utilize them for those abilities.
And I often wonder if that's just strictly a cultural thing.
You know, we've been doing it for thousands of years.
So why change?
But yeah, like you said, they're way up there past dogs a lot of times.
But people love their dogs.
Yeah, I think there's a big cultural component associated with pigs.
I mean, I mean, it's an insult.
If someone calls you a pig, it's one of the worst insults.
And to think that this is just an innocent creature with the intelligence of a toddler.
I mean, little toddler.
It's quite crazy.
There's a madness associated to how disconnected we are to their reality.
Okay, let's end with sheep.
This is from an article from PETA.
They say cheap sheep are gentle, sensitive animals who are emotionally complex and highly
intelligent.
There's Keith Kendrick, a professor of medicine at Gresham College in London, London, found
that sheep can distinguish between different expressions in humans and can detect changes
in the faces of anxious sheep.
He also discovered that sheep recognize the faces of at least 50 other sheep and can remember
50 different images for up to two years.
And then you have Professor John Webster of the University of Bristol, who found that
like humans, sheep visibly express emotions when they experience stress or isolation,
they show signs of depression, similar to those that humans show by hanging their heads
and avoiding positive actions.
Like us, sheep experience fear when they're separated from their social groups.
This one is interesting.
Sheep's heart rates have been found to increase by 20 beats per minute when they're unable
to see any members of their flock and by 84 beats per minute when approached by men and
a dog.
Sheep are more common in Europe.
New Zealand also have big sheep ranches.
So what have you seen and what could you say about sheep?
So actually where I was spending, where I lived between probably about 2013 to 2021,
I actually lived in an area where I had a very large amount of sheep.
I was out near, I was just south of the Wyoming border, Northern Colorado and Wyoming have
a very large sheep population.
That's actually most of the slaughterhouses that I've been to were sheep processing facilities.
I'm not sure how much I, not to say that sheep are stupid.
I don't know if I would necessarily call sheep smart and maybe this is my own bias, but I've
heard a number of people always joke that sheep are so stupid that they'd be the only
animal that if they got out of their, wherever they live, they would actually be able to
survive in the wild because they're just that pure dumb luck.
But no, sheep are extremely emotional, as you said.
And they certainly do become extremely fearful when they get separated.
This may do be in part very much so because they are kind of a quintessential prey animal.
They don't really have a lot of defenses to speak of.
We had mountain lions where I lived and they're certainly a target of mountain lions.
You don't want them to get, they don't want to get separated from their flock at all,
especially if you have coyotes and mountain lions that singles them out.
So I think they just have that instinctual drive.
They know if they're separated, they become a target.
There's safety in numbers.
But I've done a decent amount of sheep shearing.
What is she really?
Sheep shearing.
So you actually shave the wool off of them.
Modern day sheep have bred to the point that they grow such excessive amounts of wool.
You have to shave it.
Otherwise you can start running into just a number of issues, skin issues, more prone
to bugs.
There's all sorts of things.
So you shave it and that now becomes a product that you can sell.
But natural, like sheep that live in the wild obviously do fine without people shaving them,
shearing them.
We have bred them to the point that it's now a requirement essentially for the health and
well-being of the sheep.
This is the same thing with a lot of these livestock animals, like chickens are bred
to be so large.
Cows are bred for this huge weight.
Same thing with sheep.
We push their genetics to a point that it's become unhealthy for them.
But sheep are absolutely fantastic animals.
They have a little bit of butt heads, they will run you down, they will poke into you.
But they're adorable nonetheless.
I'm quite fond of sheep.
They're treated very similarly I think to cows a lot of times just in their general
treatment.
We don't brand them with a hot iron like a cow, but they get selected a lot of times
based on their breeding abilities.
Sheep are one of the few livestock animals that can produce twins.
So that's something you might breed on.
If they produce twins you'll keep them cycling them year after year.
I don't really have a whole lot more to add to sheep that I haven't really talked about
with some of the other livestock.
There's a lot of overlap there.
I will say I don't know how I feel about the sheep being the smarter ones.
Sometimes I think it's just pure dumb luck with them.
But I love them.
I mean it's PETA.
PETA certainly has their own bias.
I'm sure they're going to call every single animal smart.
So I'm curious Colin, you've experienced a lot in that industry.
And you're one of the few who after that experience decided to not only stop working for that
industry but become vegan.
Which is a lot of vegans will say becoming vegan is easy, you can do it, everyone can
do it.
It's pretty radical in a way.
It's something that asks of you a different perspective on the world and taking your distance
from culture and society.
So what exactly made you step away from that industry and become vegan?
It's really, really a long journey I think.
I think the first seed that kind of got planted in my head was earlier I mentioned that cow
that we had when I was a kid named Sally.
And that sort of I think planted in my mind.
I was having this disconnection of why is it that my dog sleeps in my bed and I go hang
out with them and all this and then one day I'm going to eat Sally.
That kind of and that was something I thought about even years after Sally had eventually
been sent to slaughter.
And it was a very difficult thing because I always grew up.
I grew up hunting, I grew up fishing and even to this day there's a lot of those skills
that I still carry with me even on a day to day basis.
And I think a lot of people I can talk to and they'd be like wait, wait you're vegan
but you XYZ.
You know how to fish, you know how to gut an animal, you know how this and that.
It's really, really surprising but I in high school it eventually culminated thinking about
Sally and learning more and more a little bit more about animal agriculture and how
much I loved animals.
I decided to go vegetarian because I think there's and you'll hear from a lot of vegetarians
or even non-vegetarians saying oh I could never go vegan, bacon, I love cheese.
That was me.
That was absolutely me.
You know I recognized that there was things that were wrong with it but you know I wasn't
quite, you know I just thought oh it's just too difficult.
I couldn't give up my cheese, my pizza and all that.
And then when I went to college, you know I did my undergrad in animal science and I
was learning more and more about the industry as a whole.
You know as a kid when I worked on a ranch I had never had as much opportunity to work
in like a slaughterhouse but now I had to.
Now I had to do, you know and I remember taking like a carcass evaluation course and that
course was the beginning of the week you see the animal, you as alive, you palpate you
know the fat on its back, you see its muscles, you see its skin, you see all this, you give
it a grade and then at the end of the week they slaughter it and you have the carcass
and then you have to evaluate the carcass and it was very strange seeing this animal
and it's just whatever and then the end of the week you see its dead carcass.
But the thing that really really drove me, kind of the very final thing was I had been
working for a dairy, on a dairy farm.
I had been working with a veterinarian, a large animal veterinarian and we were doing,
we were mostly doing animal reproduction work for cows but part of that we also had
to go do regular veterinary work and we had this dairy cow that you know she was very
very sweet, she was great but she was down on the floor and she wasn't walking.
Typically in the United States you can't send an animal to slaughter if it's not able to
stand up on its own weight.
So essentially you have 800 pounds, a thousand pounds of wasted money.
So we essentially, we gave it steroids hoping that it would get up and go on living and
walking.
That didn't happen.
We came back the next day and it was still there.
So my boss essentially had me euthanize it and euthanasia with livestock, it's not you
know a hundred dollars of you know barbiturates and chemicals and the peaceful like quiet
thing.
You shoot it in the back of the head and I remember shooting it in the back of the head
and it just, it really really, it really got to me because I was sitting there you know
for many years saying you know I wanted to help animals.
I wanted to be, I really cared about animal husbandry, I really love these animals, I
always consider myself an animal lover and yet here I am doing this.
I don't want to contribute this to this anymore.
I don't want to give any more of my money to this even if it's you know dairy cows,
chickens, backyard eggs, any of it.
So from there I ended up going vegan because I just, I couldn't see myself thinking of
myself as an animal lover and still contributing in this way.
So yeah it was a very very drastic change.
It's been certainly very interesting you know when I talk to people from my past you know
I'll talk to family and they're kind of very taken aback you know and they just, they're
not aggressive against it you know they're not you know I don't get as much pushback
as you would expect but you, but I do get a lot of the you know I could just never do
that.
I love bacon and cheese too much so I try and always have just an honest genuine conversation
with them and you know maybe as I go maybe I'll convert a few people along the way.
I was trying to talk to people and have you know critical discussions and make people
you know have these realizations even the other day I was at work.
I work in a hospital now.
I do very different work now but I was having a conversation with a co-worker the other
day and she was saying yeah I think you know people who abuse animals we should punish
them and lock them up and have these really really you know harsh penalties for it and
I look at her and I say you do realize you're eating a ham sandwich right now right and
I didn't quite say it like that.
I was a little bit more diplomatic about it but you know it was kind of one of those things
she said she's like you know you can kind of see your gears turning and I think that's
just I myself needed that you know I needed to have something to trigger those gears to
start turning and I think that's just kind of what a lot of other people are missing
as well.
I think when people really sit down and they start critically thinking about these things
you'll start seeing more and more people going vegan or plant-based which we're already seeing
you know you go into the grocery store and now you see a million alternatives that weren't
there 20 years ago.
I know I'm originally originally originally I'm from Germany and went back to visit family
recently and there's vegan options everywhere and apparently like meat consumption is down
20% or something like that so there's definitely a growing you know people are starting to
realize what's going on in the industry and realizing that we don't need animal products
to live.
We can live perfectly fine and healthy and even better sometimes oftentimes without these
products.
Well I have to say what you decided the action you decided to take is very admirable and
that's what you expect from a decent human being.
Why do you think others who work in that industry have not jumped out of the this nightmare
those nightmare factories and those practices why are they still doing what they're doing
even though they might have you know slaughtered innocent creatures like that cow.
Do you have any reflection on that.
Yeah I mean ultimately a lot of it does money makes the world go round.
I think that's a huge contributing factor as I mentioned earlier you have you know when
I was talking about people who work in these slaughterhouses oftentimes they are you know
without going up and asking them for you know legal documentation they're often migrant
workers who are oftentimes illegally here with you know you know wrong information.
These are the facilities that are choosing to employ them.
The people working there are often going to they have to make a decision.
Do I feed my family with a paycheck do I get a paycheck do I feed them or do I work in
this industry.
They're often going to choose to work in this industry because they have family at home
to feed they have bills to pay and that's these are the facilities where they can get
jobs at.
You know I was I was even talking about you know there was underage workers 13 and 14
year old workers at the plant in Nebraska that you know they recently came under fire.
Thirteen and fourteen year olds don't want to work a night shift at a slaughterhouse
cleaning.
They need money though people need to pay bills so there are these kids are often forced
into that type of thing.
You know and even for a lot of the other players in the industry you know the regular rancher
who is just raising 20 cows he's not working in the slaughterhouse.
It is a very you know meat is a very cultural thing very very ingrained in our society.
So it's very very hard for people to give up that aspect of their life.
Even for me personally like I think about like fish and hunting you know that's I love
fishing.
I loved going out with my buddies on you know the canoe and we would sit out there and fish
and you know have a great time and it was just awesome.
And you know but that is an activity like I do miss.
It's not even it's not the eating the fish it's just an activity I miss it was so you
know part of my culture and just part of who I am.
And to this day you know I still you know I don't hunt but I still go and I end up I
still do like long range rifle shooting and I'll oftentimes talk with some of these people
who do hunt and you can tell that them going and taking their son hunting that's a bonding
experience that they have.
You know their dad took them hunting so they want to take their son's hunting.
It's just a very cultural thing to them and it's very very hard for them to break those
habits.
But you know as I said it's a slow process.
You're seeing more and more people moving away from animal agriculture and eating animals
to plant based diets but it's going to take time.
And I do see that I do believe that the animal agriculture industry is going to start shrinking
significantly in the future.
Hopefully hopefully and I'm so happy that you exist and that you share your experience
so openly.
I think it's important to hear from people who not only you know have seen those because
that's one thing to watch a movie like Dominion but it's another to talk to someone who has
actual experience backing up who can say you know I've witnessed that I know that this
is happening and this is real and not only that but you've made changes radical changes
in your life to align with your ethical beliefs.
Again it's very admirable.
Did you have something to add before we end this conversation.
I know we probably went a little bit over the time.
But you know I would definitely for the viewers of this that you know aren't vegan or considering
going vegan you know I would certainly encourage them to look into it and realize that you
know people say it's an extremely difficult thing and it's not to say that there aren't
difficulties with it.
You know it will certainly impact you know your social life to some degree.
You know all your friends go out to eat a pizza and oh there's nothing for the vegan
to eat.
You know you will get you know my best friend even he drives me up the wall he tells me
all the time Colin you should stop being vegan and you know we have a back and forth and
you know it's one of those things.
But don't let those discourage you.
It is it's becoming easier.
The world is going vegan even even just everywhere in the world.
I've been on vacation you know I was in Europe recently and like I said you can go to any
major city and you can eat vegan and find it.
It's accessible there you know you might have to do a little bit of looking but it's not
as difficult as people think it is.
And you know you're not supporting this industry that is unnecessarily killing and torturing
animals essentially.
No I definitely encourage people to give it a try.
I completely agree give it a try and you know there are more advantages than some some vegan
talk about health benefits.
I'm not into that whole you know health stuff but in terms of just having a clear conscience
and maybe even in a spiritual way it feels good to do this to know that just by being
vegan you're doing something positive on this earth and you're doing something good.
Yeah it's a great feeling truly a great feeling.
And if you try it and you make a mistake don't get discouraged you know it's you know sometimes
I find out the other day like there's a lot of toilet paper that apparently uses gelatin.
You're gonna you're gonna run into those type of issues.
It's very frustrating but it makes you but it makes you more aware of what you're consuming
in general and you do you do very you do feel better about what it is you know and you know
just make sure you vary your diet.
Don't just eat Oreos and bananas the whole time you know actually mix it up and you're
gonna you're gonna find that the vegan food is a lot better than people give it credit
for.
There's a lot of people like oh that's nasty and bland it's like no I've actually like
really opened up my experience with food because I'm willing to step out and try new things.
Yeah people can message me I will send them some recipes.
It would be my pleasure and yes here again I agree with you there this is don't be dogmatic.
I mean even if you reduce your consumption of meat you're making a difference.
So yeah think about what you can do.
So again thank you very much Colin for having answered my question and having been a guest
on this podcast.
Thank you I appreciate it perfect timing I'm at 3% battery on my laptop perfect timing.
Thank you everyone for listening.
I hope that Colin's journey from working for the animal industry to becoming vegan has
inspired you.
Please share this conversation with family and friends and raise awareness on this damaging
industry.
I think you are going to be excited for next week's episode I'm going to launch an ongoing
series on this podcast called Vegan Veterans where you will hear me talk with ordinary
people who have been vegan for a long time starting with Justin who discovered veganism
through the punk rock scene and became vegan during the 1990s.
I want to understand what makes someone adopt and sustain such radical changes in their
life and why so many vegans stop being vegan only after a few months.
If you like this podcast take the time to leave a good review I'm also on Instagram
if you want to reach out at veganreportpodcast.
Thank you again for listening take care and see you next week.