One Factory Farm to Phase Out Gestation Crates

I'll be a MUCH happier carnivore if they can just start growing my meat in vats and leave the animals out of it.

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Nation’s Largest Pork Producer Moves to Phase Out Confinement of Pigs in Gestation Crates

Smithfield Foods Inc., the nation's largest pork producer, announced today it will phase out the confinement of pigs in gestation crates over the next decade.









The decision comes after voters in Arizona and Florida—in
ballot initiatives spearheaded by The HSUS—approved measures to outlaw the crates. The Arizona measure, Proposition 204, was approved in November 2006 by 62 percent of voters, in spite of a vigorous campaign by the animal agribusiness industry to defeat it.

"This is an earthquake in the pig industry," Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS, said. "Gestation crates are one of the most inhumane confinement systems used in modern agribusiness, and this decision is a signal by the industry leader that these crates have no place in the future of American agriculture. The HSUS calls on the other major pork producers to follow Smithfield's lead, and rid the industry of this extraordinarily inhumane confinement system."...
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Gestation crates are 2-foot by 7-foot metal cages that house breeding pigs. The sows have a gestation period of four months, and are in the crates for nearly their entire pregnancy. After giving birth, they are re-impregnated and placed back in the crates, enduring perhaps eight or 10 successive pregnancies in the crates before the animals are reproductively "spent." The crates are so restrictive that the animals can't even turn around for months on end. Pigs confined in gestation crates suffer both leg and joint problems along with psychosis resulting from extreme boredom and frustration.