Animals used for food:

*--In the US, 3 million animals are killed per hour for food.
*--Almost all of the pork, bacon and ham consumed in the US comes from 100 million pigs who live in stacked crates or barren cement stalls.
*--Factory-farmed animals can do almost nothing that is natural to them-they are never able to feel the grass beneath their feet or the sun on their faces.
*--Chickens have their beaks sliced off with a hot blade, pigs have their tails chopped off and their teeth pulled with pliers, and bulls and pigs are castrated-all without anesthetics. Animals are fed a steady diet of hormones and antibiotics so that they grow too quickly: Their hearts and limbs often cannot keep up, causing lameness and heart attacks.
*--At the slaughterhouse, animals are hung upside-down and bled to death, sometimes while fully concious.
*--The risk of death for an average American man is 50 percent but only 4 percent for a pure vegetarian man.
*--Countries with the lowest consumption of animal products have the lowest incidences of colon cancer.
*--Egg-laying hens often live seven or more to a cage only 20 inches wide, although a chicken's wingspan is 32 inches. When their laying cycle wanes, most are shocked into another laying cycle - they are starved for 10 to 14 days, causing many to die.
*--Animal behaviorists have learned that chickens have the cognitive abilities of small human children, form complex social relationships (hence the phrase "pecking order"), communicate an array of complex thoughts, and so on. On modern farms, everything natural to chickens is denied them.
*--Nationwide, nearly 9 billion chickens are killed for food every year. They die at a rate of about 1 percent per week from the horrible conditions that they're forced to endure-packed by the tens of thousands into sheds, living in their own feces and urine, artificially bred to grow so fast that their legs can't suppor their body weight.
*--As many as 49 percent of chicken carcasses are contaminated with salmonella, campylobacter, or other bacteria, as well as the antibiotics that the chickens have been fed. Seventy percent of antibiotics produced in the US are fed to chickens, pigs and cows.

Animals in The Dairy Industry:

*--Male calves, the "byproducts" of the dairy industry, endure 14-17 weeks of torment in veal crates so small that they can't even turn around. Deliberately starved of vital nutrients, the calves suffer from anemia and other diseases.
*--Levels of pus in milk are rising and have been in excess of 300 millions cells per liter for years.This indicates that about one-third of all cows have mastitis, a painful udder infection.
*--Milk is not "natural". Cow's milk is suited to the needs ot calves who double their weight in 47 days, have four stomachs, and weigh 300 pounds within a year. It is devoid of fiber but is loaded with fat, dioxins, hormones, antibiotics, and other substances that are thought to be linked to breast and prostate cancer and other illnesses.
*--The death rates of dairy cows within the first two weeks after calving have doubled in the past 20 years. Conditions in the dairy industry are so unnatural and abusive that 15 to 20 percent of cows die before they reach calving age. Most cows are slaughtered at age 4, a fraction of their natural lifespan.**

*--Millions of animals are killed annually in US laboratories in everything from burn and starvation experiments to weaponry testing and space research. Another 14 million, plus hundreds of thousands more, are killed in product tests.
*--In some states, pounds surrender dogs and cas to laboratories. "Bunchers" pick up strays, purchase litters and/or trap and steal animals to sell for experiments.
*--Outdated laws require that all drugs be tested on animals. Even so, more than half of all prescription drugs approved by the FDA in a nine-year period had to be relabeled or withdrawn from the market because of serious side-effects. Cosmetics and household products are not required to be tested on animals.
*--Sophisticated research methods, such as computer models, cell cultures, and human and clinical and epidemiological studies are more humane, more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments.
*--More than 550 cosmetics and household product companies have announced permanent bans on animal testing. Many companies have never performed tests on animals.**

*--Eighty-five percent of the fur industry's skins come from animals on fur farms.
*--On fur factory farms, minks are commonly kept in cages 10 inches high by 18 inches wide.
*--In many Asian countries, dogs and cats are killed for their skins, but the exported leather products are rarely labeled to show this.
*--The meat industry could not survive economically without the sale of animal hides
*--Animals can languish in traps for days. Many trapped animals escape by chewing off their own feet, only to die later from blood loss, fever, infection or predation.
*--Trappers usually strangle, beat or stomp trapped animals to death. Animals on fur factory farms may be gassed, anally electrocuted, poisoned with strychnine, or have their necks snapped.
*--It takes more than three times as much energy to make a coat from trapped animals' pelts and more than 66 times as much from fur factory farms-raised animals' pelts as it does to make a fake fur coat.**

Pet store animals are bred for the purpose of becoming pet store merchandise. For every animal bought from a pet store, a shelter animal is euthanized or left homeless. Exotic animals in pet stores have been known to be neglected, mistreated and given improper care. Pet store staff and employees are trained at a level no higher than 8th grade intelligence when exotic animals require in depth knowledge, research, time and patience and proper care cannot be provided without this extensive information about the species. Despite the fact that some pet store employees may be caring and devoted, there is no way to prevent animal suffering across such large distances over which corporation pet stores are scattered. Exotic birds from foreign countries, different climates and very different regions require a level of sophisticated care that simply isn't provided by all pet store employees. Animal suffering and deaths due to neglect, improper care and simple mistakes are inevitable in large corporate pet stores. This degree of casualties is unacceptable. Exotic animals belong in their exotic environment, and the homes they are given could rightfully go to homeless shelter animals had the pet store animal never been. Breeding facilities for pet store animals have also been known for hideous conditions as notorious as puppy mills. Animals for sale in pet stores are often sick as many guardians of pet store animals well know. Upper respiratory infections such as kennel cough, parasites, worms and even breed specific genetic diseases are found in pet store animals because of poor and careless breeding facilities and poor pet store care. Pet stores boast their 90-day guarantees on pet store animals, a policy that is in place because these diseases and illnesses are so common. A policy that only further demonstrates animals as possessions, as property, not as living, feeling, thinking, wonderful creatures.

*--Animals in circuses are forced to travel thousands of miles for 48-50 weeks every year.
*--Elephants are chained to filthy railroad cars that are often left in the sun in 90-100 degree weather. Male elephants, because they are less controllable, may spend their entire lives in chains.
*--Tigers live and are transported in cages only 4 feet by 5 feet by 6 feet-barely enough room to stand up and turn around in.
*--Animals perform under threat of punishment. Bears commonly have their paws burned to force them to stand on their hind legs. And according to Henty Ringling North, big cats are "chained to their pedestals, and ropes are put around their necks to choke them down. The work from fear."**