Be a Voice for Animals on World Day for Farmed Animals

Approximately 65 billion animals are killed each year to produce meat, eggs and dairy, according to Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), a national nonprofit organization working to end the use of animals for food through public education and grassroots activism. 
It’s hard to wrap one’s mind around that astronomical number, isn’t it? FARM explains:

Most of these animals are raised on factory farms, where they are confined, mutilated and raised to grow so large, so quickly, that many of them literally suffer to death. Even animals raised on small family farms endure many of these abuses. Regardless of how they were raised, all animals raised for food face a gruesome slaughter.

With a desire to expose “the needless suffering and death of sentient animals raised and killed for food”, in 1983 FARM founded World Day for Farmed Animals (WDFA), a worldwide day of action that takes place every October 2.
On October 2 those interested in participating in World Day for Farmed Animals can pledge to #FastAgainstSlaughter, joining thousands around the world in a day-long fast in solidarity with farmed animals.
Alex Hershaft, the founder of FARM, has taken part in his own Fast Against Slaughter for over 30 years to show his solidarity with farmed animals who are routinely starved for several hours as they are transported to slaughter. He decided to call on the public to join him in his 32nd fast; there was an overwhelming response, and so it continues.
But fasting isn’t the only way to take part in World Day for Farmed Animals. There are plenty of other events. Participants can plan and/or attend a demonstration, watch and share the hard-hitting video about animal agriculture called 10 Billion Lives, and distribute literature.
Last year on the 32nd annual World Day for Farmed Animals, over 12,000 people in 95 different countries on six continents participated in the Fast Against Slaughter. There were also candlelight vigils, marches, cage-ins, information tables, exhibits, video screenings, and more.
Activists in the UK protested outside a McDonald’s restaurant, groups in Russia organized leafleting and outreach events, and activists demonstrated at slaughterhouses in 14 cities in the United States and 4 in Canada, including a moving protest at Farmer John led by animal rights activist Ellen Ericksen and FARM.
(For those unfamiliar, Farmer John is what some refer to as a pork packing facility located just south of L.A., but more to the point, it’s a slaughterhouse with a seriously creepy mural painted on it.)
At the Farmer John demonstration last year, Ericksen shared with the crowd that 8,100 pigs brutally lose their lives there five days a week, trucked in during the dark of night. If accurate, that adds up to 40,500 slaughtered pigs per week, a horrendously staggering number.
Leading up to the Farmer John demonstration, there was this action:

Four activists drove out to a farm in Utah to follow and document the 500-mile journey undertaken by pigs in transport to the notorious Los Angeles slaughterhouse Farmer John. They were arrested and charged under Utah’s “ag-gag” legislation for taking photographs from the street, only the second time an ag-gag law has been enforced in the US. Activists met the trucks from Utah at Farmer John at an early morning demonstration.

We talk a lot about farmed animal welfare here at Care2—of the horrible journey they’re forced to endure from farm to slaughterhouse (1 percent are expected to die en route), the inhumane living and deplorable factory farm conditions, and what a slaughterhouse is really like behind the scenes.
On October 2, people will join together to be a voice for farmed animals. It’s one day of the year when those around the world who care unite to expose the unnecessary suffering of animals who are often tortured, and in the end, slaughtered. That is, if they make it to the slaughterhouse.
Get Involved in World Day for Farmed Animals
It goes without saying, the actions of thousands of people one day a year isn’t likely to end farmed animal suffering around the world, but it’s a start, and it’s something. So will you be a voice for animals on World Day for Farmed Animals?
Visit www.dayforanimals.org to get involved.