How nine animals live and die,
starting with a dog.
We call one of them family and the rest of them dinner. This is how each one is born, what is done to it, and how it dies.
Dog
What we’re told“She’s family.”
Photo: digital_image_fan, a golden retriever in the snow, Canada, 2009 (CC BY 2.0)
You already know how to feel about her.
You’d defend her. If someone hurt her for fun, you’d call it cruelty, and so would anyone. All this page asks is that you hold on to that feeling while the species changes.
A life, start to finish
Born, and kept with her mother
She stays with her mother and litter for the first weeks of life. We consider taking a puppy away too early a harm worth regulating.
Named, and brought home
She gets a name, a vet, a bed, a collar with your phone number on it, so that if she is ever lost, she comes back to you.
Walked, fed, talked to
You learn her personality. You notice when she is anxious or in pain. You arrange your day around her. When you go away, you worry about who will look after her.
We spend whatever it takes
Pain relief, surgery, medication, many people spend thousands, and sit up through the night, to give a dog a little more time. Hurting her for pleasure would be a crime.
Protected by lawShe dies old, and we grieve
She lives a full life, ten to fifteen years or more. When she dies we mourn her, bury or cremate her, and remember her for years. She was someone.
Everything that follows asks you to stop making one exception.
Source: This is the control, and it needs no citation: you supplied the evidence yourself.
Pig
What we’re told“It’s humane slaughter.”
Still: Animal Equality, East Anglian Pig Company, England, 2012 (CC BY 3.0)
Lowered, in groups, into a pit of gas.
The CO₂ turns to acid on her eyes, nose, mouth and lungs, and she gasps against a need to breathe that only grows, with panic and fear, for up to a minute before she blacks out. She solves problems as well as a dog, and she dreams.
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A life, start to finish
Born in a crate she cannot turn around in
Most mother pigs give birth in a farrowing crate, a metal frame so narrow she cannot turn to reach her piglets. She may spend weeks in it. A sow is as clever as a dog and builds a nest when she can; here she lies on concrete and steel.
Tail cut, teeth clipped, castrated, awake
Within his first days a piglet may have his tail cut off and his teeth ground or clipped, and in many countries males are castrated. EU rules require anaesthetic for castration or tail docking only after the seventh day of life, and Ireland’s 2010 regulations draw the same line. Canada’s code requires anaesthetic for castration only after ten days, though since 2016 a painkiller has been required at any age. In the US it is commonly done with no pain relief at all, and the FDA has approved no painkiller for pigs. Germany has required anaesthesia for castration since 2021.
Often no pain reliefWeaned early, packed into a fattening pen
Taken from his mother far younger than he would naturally leave her, he is moved to a barren pen on slatted concrete and fed to grow as fast as possible, no straw, no soil, nothing to do with a curious mind.
Loaded onto the truck
At around half a year old, a fraction of a pig’s natural 15–20 years, he reaches slaughter weight and is loaded for transport, often for hours, in all weather.
Lowered into the gas
Most pigs killed in England and Wales, Ireland and Australia are stunned with high-concentration CO₂, usually lowered into the pit in groups: about 90% in England and Wales by the UK government’s count, and 85% in Australia by the industry’s estimate. The gas forms acid on their eyes, nose and lungs, and they gasp, squeal and try to escape, conscious for up to a minute. The UK government’s advisers said in 2025 that its use should be prohibited, and none of these countries has banned it yet.
Legal & standardLowered into the gas
Australia’s pork industry estimates that about 85% of pigs are killed at abattoirs that lower them, in a cage, into high-concentration CO₂. The gas forms acid on their eyes, nose and lungs, and they gasp, squeal and try to escape, conscious for up to a minute. A committee of Victoria’s parliament found in 2024 that the gas is “aversive to pigs who experience high levels of pain and stress”, and six months later the Victorian government still called it “currently considered the best practice method”.
Legal & standardLowered into the gas
Canada publishes no figure for how many pigs are gassed. Its food inspection agency says carbon dioxide is “irritating to respiratory mucous membranes”, and that at the high concentrations used in North America some pigs react “by attempting to escape and showing marked shaking of their heads”. Canadian rules require a blow or an electric current to cause “an immediate loss of consciousness”, but gas only a “rapid” one.
Legal, with no figure publishedLowered into the gas
Ireland’s agriculture minister told the Dáil in June 2026 that “the majority of pigs are stunned by carbon dioxide in high concentration”. The gas forms acid on their eyes, nose and lungs, and they gasp, squeal and try to escape, conscious for up to a minute. In the same written answers he said “a specific review of the stunning methods used for pigs has not been carried out in Ireland”.
Legal & standardStunned, then bled
In New Zealand, pigs are stunned with an electrical stunner, a captive bolt or a gun before their throats are cut, because the national code for commercial slaughter allows no other method for them. Most of the pork New Zealanders eat is imported, though, and in Australia, one of the main suppliers, most pigs are gassed.
No gas for pigs in New ZealandLowered into the gas
Around 90% of pigs in England and Wales are lowered, in groups, into a pit of high-concentration CO₂, by the UK government’s own count. The gas forms acid on their eyes, nose and lungs, and they gasp, squeal and try to escape, conscious for up to a minute. The rules in England and Wales say each pig must stay in the gas “long enough to ensure it is killed”. In 2025 the UK government’s advisers said it should be prohibited, and that December ministers promised a ban in England, subject to a consultation that, as of October 2026, has not opened.
Legal & standardLowered into the gas
The US government publishes no figure, but an industry estimate (Pig Improvement Company data, quoted in a 2023 petition to the USDA by animal-welfare groups) put CO₂ stunning at 86% of US pigs in 2020. The gas forms acid on their eyes, nose and lungs, and they gasp, squeal and try to escape, conscious for up to a minute. US federal rules set no minimum concentration and say carbon dioxide “may be administered to induce death”.
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The UK government’s advisers called it “not acceptable” in 2003. It is still the standard method in England, Ireland and Australia.
Source: Animal Welfare Committee (2025); FAWC (2003); Defra, Animal Welfare Strategy for England (2025); FSA Slaughter Sector Survey 2024 (England and Wales, a government figure); WATOK (England) 2015 and (Wales) 2014, Sch 1 para 29; EFSA (2020); Parliament of Victoria, Inquiry into Pig Welfare in Victoria (2024), with Australian Pork Limited’s estimate (an industry figure), and Victorian Government Response (2024); Dáil Éireann written answers 668 and 669 (30 June 2026, government figures); FSIS petition 23-05 (2023), quoting Pig Improvement Company data (an industry estimate); 9 CFR 313.5 (US); CFIA humane slaughter guidance and Safe Food for Canadians Regulations s.141 (Canada); NFACC Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs (2014); NZ Code of Welfare: Commercial Slaughter (2018, amended 2026); NZ Pork (an industry figure); EU Directive 2008/120/EC; S.I. 311/2010 (Ireland); de Melo et al., Porcine Health Management (2026); German Federal Ministry of Agriculture, piglet castration; Mace & Knight (2025); Marino & Colvin (2015).
Chicken
What we’re told“It’s just a chicken.”
Photo: Andrew Skowron / Otwarte Klatki, Poland, 2019 (CC BY 2.0)
Killed at six weeks old, still cheeping like a chick.
Bred to grow so fast that their hearts and legs collapse under their own weight. A chicken has a rudimentary sense of number and can anticipate the future, and hers is six weeks long.
A life, start to finish
Hatched in a tray, never meeting a hen
She hatches in an industrial incubator and never sees a parent. In the egg industry, her brothers are useless, they can’t lay, so the male chicks are killed on their first day, ground up alive or gassed. Billions of them, every year.
Male chicks: killed on day oneBred to grow until her body breaks
A modern broiler grows several times faster than a chicken did in the 1950s. Her legs and heart cannot keep up with the breast the industry selected for; many go lame or die of heart failure inside the shed, which is all she will ever know.
Grabbed by the legs, crated, trucked
At around six weeks, still cheeping like the chick she is, she is caught by the legs, often several birds to a hand, packed into crates and driven to the abattoir.
Shackled upside down at six weeks
She is hung by her feet from a moving line, her head drawn through an electrified water bath, and her throat cut. More chickens are killed each year, over 70 billion, than every other land animal on Earth combined.
Killed at ~6 weeksMore chickens are killed each year than every other land animal on Earth combined.
Source: FAO / Our World in Data (2021); RSPCA; Marino, “Thinking Chickens” (2017).
Turkey
What we’re told“It’s the centrepiece.”
Photo: Roee Shpernik / Glass Walls Project, turkeys raised for meat, Israel, 2016 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Bred so heavy he can no longer mate.
The commercial turkey has been selected for so much breast meat that he physically cannot reproduce, every single one is conceived by artificial insemination. He is a bird who can no longer make another of himself without us.
A life, start to finish
Out of an incubator, beak and toes trimmed
Poults hatch in a hatchery and are routinely beak-trimmed and de-toed, parts of the beak and toes cut off without pain relief, to limit the injuries that crowding causes.
Usually no anaestheticGrown to twice a wild turkey’s weight
Selective breeding has roughly doubled their size since the 1960s. The same breast meat we buy leaves them lame, breathless and unable to mate, so the species is kept going entirely by artificial insemination.
Killed as the centrepiece
A turkey can live around ten years. We kill them at a few months, shackled, stunned in an electric water bath and bled, so that the table has a centrepiece for a single afternoon.
Killed at months oldA body engineered past the point of working, to put more breast meat on the plate.
Source: Aviagen/BUT breeding data; RSPCA; FAO / Our World in Data (2024); USDA NASS, Poultry Slaughter 2024 Summary (US, a government figure).
Dairy cow
What we’re told“The milk was spare.”
Photo: Joanne Clifford, Kourage at the dairy barn of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Ottawa, 2019 (CC BY 2.0)
Her calf is taken within a day. She bellows for days.
She is forcibly impregnated so she lactates, and her baby is removed so you can have what was meant for it. Her son becomes veal. When her yield drops, she goes the way of every animal on this page.
A life, start to finish
Born, and taken from her mother
Like the calf she will one day lose, she is separated from her own mother within hours or a day. Cows and calves bond fast and call out for each other for days after they are parted.
Restrained and made pregnant
She is artificially inseminated while held in a restraint, and carries a calf for nine months. A cow only gives milk because, like any mammal, she has had a baby. To keep the milk flowing, she is impregnated again and again.
Forcibly impregnatedHer calf is taken so we can take the milk
Within a day, her calf is removed. If he is male, he is near-worthless to the dairy: shot soon after birth or raised for veal in a hutch. The milk that was made for him is sold.
Milked, pregnant, milked again
She is milked for around ten months while pregnant with the next calf, pushed to yield far more than nature intended. The cycle, pregnancy, birth, loss, milking, repeats every year until her body fails.
Spent, and slaughtered anyway
A cow can live around twenty years. When her yield drops at four to six, she is “spent”, worn out, and sent to slaughter for cheap beef.
A quarter of her natural lifeSpent by five, killed at a quarter of her natural life.
Source: Compassion in World Farming; EFSA.
Lamb
What we’re told“Spring lamb.”
Photo: Volatus, a lamb, 2010 (CC BY 3.0)
The lamb on the plate was usually less than a year old.
A sheep can live twelve years. In 2024 Australia killed about 38 million sheep and lambs, New Zealand about 22 million and the UK nearly 13 million, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
A life, start to finish
Born in a field, beside his mother
This is the part we put on the packaging: lambs in green fields. It is real, and it is brief. He stays close to his mother and would, if left alone, live well over a decade.
Tail and testicles ringed off, awake
Within his first weeks his tail is docked and he is castrated, most commonly with a tight rubber ring that cuts off the blood supply until the flesh dies and drops away. In many countries it is legal to do this with no pain relief.
Usually no anaestheticSheared at speed, and, for Merino, mulesed
Shearing is paid by volume, so it is fast and nicks are common. On Merino farms in Australia, strips of skin are cut from a live lamb’s hindquarters, “mulesing”, frequently without anaesthetic, to prevent flystrike.
Killed before his first birthday
Most lambs are slaughtered before they are a year old, at a small fraction of a sheep’s natural life, so the “spring lamb” on the plate never saw a second spring.
A fraction of 12 yearsWe usually take more than eleven of those twelve years.
Source: FAO / Our World in Data (2024); RSPCA; Countryfile, How long do sheep live? (2026, a natural lifespan of about 10 to 12 years).
Duck
What we’re told“A delicacy.”
Photo: L214, Éthique & Animaux investigation, France 2012 (CC BY 3.0)
A pipe down the throat, twice a day.
For foie gras, a metal tube is rammed down her oesophagus and grain is pumped directly into her stomach until her liver swells into disease. The photograph on this page is from inside a French farm. It is not the worst one.
A life, start to finish
A water bird, raised without water
Ducks are waterfowl, they need to swim, dabble and preen. In intensive sheds most never touch open water at all, kept on litter in crowded barns.
A pipe down the throat, two or three times a day
For foie gras, a metal tube is pushed down the oesophagus and grain pumped into the stomach until the liver swells up to ten times its size, a deliberately induced disease, hepatic lipidosis, sold as a delicacy.
A diseased organ, sold as luxuryFeathers, sometimes torn from the living
For down bedding and jackets, feathers are plucked from ducks and geese, in some supply chains from live birds, who are restrained, stripped and left to regrow them before it is done again.
Slaughtered at weeks old
Ducks farmed for meat are killed at around seven weeks. Like chickens, most are shackled, stunned in a water bath and bled, a life measured in weeks.
Killed at ~7 weeksA diseased organ, ten times its natural size, sold as luxury.
Source: EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare; Compassion in World Farming.
Fish
What we’re told“They don’t feel anything.”
Photo: Edna Winti, bream on ice at Granville Island Market, Vancouver, 2016 (CC BY 2.0)
They feel it. All of it.
Fish have pain receptors and respond to pain much as mammals do; a cleaner wrasse passed a modified mirror test. We kill more of them than every other animal put together, the vast majority with no stunning at all: crushed in nets, or left to suffocate.
A life, start to finish
Dragged up from the deep
Trawled fish are hauled up so fast their swim bladders rupture and their eyes and stomachs can be forced out by the pressure change. Tipped onto the deck, they are crushed under the weight of the catch or left to suffocate. Almost none are stunned first.
Usually no stunningA lifetime in a crowded cage
Farmed fish such as salmon spend their lives packed in sea cages, plagued by sea lice and disease, many deformed or dying before harvest. Crowding a fish is no kinder than crowding any other animal.
Wired for pain
Fish have nociceptors and opioid receptors and show the behavioural and physiological signs of pain that mammals do. “They don’t feel anything” is a story we tell because there are so many of them, and they cannot scream.
Killed by the trillion
Between roughly one and over two trillion fish are killed for food each year, more individuals than every other farmed animal combined.
Up to 2 trillion a yearKilled by the trillion, and almost none of them stunned first.
Source: Sneddon et al., Proc. R. Soc. B (2003); Kohda et al. (2019/2022); fishcount.org.uk.
Rabbit
What we’re told“It’s necessary research.”
Photo: Andrew Skowron / Otwarte Klatki, a rabbit in a laboratory cage, Poland, 2017 (CC BY 2.0)
A chemical in the eye, left unwashed, and the damage scored for up to three weeks.
Chemicals are still dripped into rabbits’ eyes, and the international guideline for the test names the albino rabbit as its preferred animal. Animal tests are a poor guide to people in any case: the overwhelming majority of drugs that pass them go on to fail in humans.
A life, start to finish
Born for the catalogue
Most laboratory animals are purpose-bred and sold by suppliers, sized and priced like equipment.
Eyelids held shut over the chemical
Rabbits are the standard animal for eye-irritation tests: their eyes are large, they are cheap and easy to handle, and they blink far less often than most mammals. The chemical is placed in the pocket under the lower lid, the lids are held shut so none is lost, and the eye is left unwashed for at least a day, then scored for up to three weeks.
Scored for up to 21 daysForce-fed, dosed, made ill on purpose
Across research, animals are force-fed, injected, made to inhale substances, or given diseases, then observed as they sicken. Much of it is unrelieved by anaesthetic or painkiller.
Killed when the study ends
The overwhelming majority are killed at the end of the experiment. An estimated 192 million animals are used or bred for science worldwide each year.
~192 million a yearIt rarely even tells us about ourselves
More than 90% of drugs that pass animal testing still fail in human trials, because they turn out too toxic or simply don’t work. A mouse is a poor stand-in for a person.
We hurt them, and it tells us little about ourselves.
Source: OECD Test Guideline 405 (as corrected 2021); Haschek & Rousseaux’s Handbook of Toxicologic Pathology, “Eye”; Taylor & Alvarez (2019); clinical attrition data (BIO/Informa); FDA Modernization Act 2.0 (2022).
You'd call any of this cruelty if it were done to the dog.
The dog came first so you had someone to compare the others with.