Chicken & Egg Industry / Dairy & Meat Industry / Factory Farming / Films / Movies / Films About Diet and Food / Pigs & Pork Industry

Land Of Hope And Glory – The Hidden Truth Behind UK Animal Farming

by Jennie Richards · Published February 11, 2018 · Updated February 11, 2018

Land and of Hope and Glory looks behind the façade that food companies have worked so hard to maintain in the UK and opens our eyes to the truth—the hidden truth behind UK animal farming. The film features approximately 100 animal farm facilities across the UK with never before seen undercover footage.

Land and of Hope and Glory strives to show the truth behind UK land animal farming by featuring the most up-to-date investigations as well as never before seen undercover footage. The UK alone raises and slaughters around one billion land animals every year for meat, dairy and eggs, and this film raises our consciousness about what it means to be one of these animals.

In the first scenes, the film issues this warning: “Be aware the government and the animal agriculture industries fight to keep the content to keep the following film hidden from your view, the footage your about to see are not from isolated cases. These facilities supply animal products that are labeled free-range, red tractor-approved, RSPCA, organic, and high welfare. The footage your about to see is the reality of UK farming. Most do not realize we’ve been blinded by smokescreen, and the reality of UK farming exists at the opposite end of the moral spectrum in regard to human compassion toward the animals and the Earth.”

“It is believed that taking the life of an animal can be done in a humane way. However, this very concept is an oxymoron. You cannot kill someone who wants to live in a compassionate and kind way. We can no longer cling to ideas of high welfare farms or humane slaughterhouses. As to deny someone their freedom, commodify and mutilate their body, take away their babies, and take their life from them—can never be done without exploitation and abuse.” ~ Ed Winters

“It is ignorance that allows us to consume and purchase without considering the industries that we are supporting. And therefore, informing ourselves of the horrors that these purchases perpetuate is not only a liberation for the animals, but indeed for ourselves as well. ~ Ed Winters

From this moment on you can no longer say you didn’t know …. now do something about it.

Film Released: 2017

Film Length: 48 minutes

Watch The Film

Watch for Free on Website

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Visit Land Of Hope And Glory Website

Subtitles in 10 Languages

Support Earthling Ed’s animal rights work on Patreon

Visit Earthling Ed’s website

Get Earthling Ed’s free e-book on becoming a vegan advocate

Land of Hope and Glory is made by the founders of the animal rights organization Surge

What You Can Do

Share this Important Film – Please watch and most importantly SHARE this honest, important film. Send it to your friends and family and share it on your social media pages. The only way this film will change the lives of animals is through each one of you sharing it, and going vegan.
Go Vegan! – Best thing you can do to save animals from cruelty, and literally save their lives from being born into cruelty—is to go vegan. Take the vegan challenge here!

The Truth About Animal Agriculture in the UK (and the U.S.)

(Source: https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts)

Dairy Cows

For a cow to produce milk she must first give birth to a calf. This means dairy cows are impregnated every year in order to keep a continuous milk supply.
Dairy cows have been modified to produce up to 10 times more milk than they would naturally.
30 % of UK dairy cows have mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder.
Calves would naturally feed from their mothers for around 9 months to a year, but dairy calves are taken away from their mothers normally within 24 – 72 hours of birth, in order for the farmer to ensure as much milk as possible can be acquired from the mother.
Separation of mother and child is an incredibly traumatic experience – and both will cry out for days.
150,000 dairy cows are slaughtered whilst still pregnant in the UK each year.
Every year around 90,000 male dairy calves are shot soon after birth and discarded as a by-product.
Female calves are separated from their mothers and are kept in solitary confinement. Legally, calves are only meant to be kept in confinement crates for 8 weeks, however it has been documented that on UK farms the calves are kept in confinement for as long as 6 months.
UK farmers have been documented kicking mother cows and beating and throwing new-born calves.
Dairy cows are sent to slaughter after around 4 – 6 years, or when they are too weak to continue producing milk. Their natural lifespan is around 25 years.
Most cows are slaughtered by first being stunned with a captive bolt pistol before then being hung upside down and having their throat slit. It is estimated that between 5 – 10% of cattle are not stunned effectively and will have to endure the experience of being shot repeatedly in the head or having their throat cut and their blood drained whilst still fully conscious.

Pigs

There are around 11,000 pig farms in the UK. Approximately 1,400 of these units house more than 1,000 pigs and hold around 85% of the total pig population in the UK.
There is no legal definition or formal standards for free-range pigs, which means retailers can label pork products as free-range without having to adhere to any standards or guidelines.
Only 3% of UK pigs spend their entire lives outdoors.
The vast majority of the pork products sold in the UK come from factory farms.
Most pigs are officially entitled to less than one square metre of space each and the majority of sows (female breeding pigs) are kept in farrowing crates. Farrowing crates were made illegal in several countries across Europe, but are still standard farming practice here in the UK.
Farrowing crates are so small that the sows cannot turn around in them. The mother pigs are kept in these crates for up to 5 weeks at a time, every time they give birth.
In the UK alone we slaughter around one billion land animals every year for meat, dairy and eggs.
There are around 11,000 pig farms in the UK. Around 1,400 of these units house more than 1,000 pigs and hold around 85% of the total pig population in the UK.
There is no legal definition or formal standards for free-range pigs, which means retailers can label pork products as free-range without having to adhere to any standards or guidelines.
Farmers inflict mutilations on piglets by amputating their tails and clipping their teeth, all of which is done without anaesthetic or painkillers.
Most pigs are officially entitled to less than one square metre of space each and the majority of sows (female breeding pigs) are kept in farrowing crates. Farrowing crates were made illegal in several countries across Europe, but are still standard farming practice here in the UK.
Farrowing crates are so small that the sows cannot turn around in them. The mother pigs are kept in these crates for up to 5 weeks at a time, every time they give birth.
The majority of sows in the UK are artificially inseminated in order to ensure they are kept continuously pregnant. The cycle of forced impregnation and confinement is repeated over and over again for about 3 – 5 years or until the sow is too exhausted to carry on.

Sheep & Goats

Every year around 4 million newborn lambs die within a few days of birth, mainly because of malnutrition, disease or exposure to cold weather.
Diseases are rampant on sheep farms, with mastitis and severe lameness widespread. While footroot, a bacterial infection, is present in over 97% of flocks in the UK.
Around 1.4 million sheep and goats are killed without being stunned each year in the UK using halal practices. Many people in the UK oppose this form of slaughter, yet purchase halal meat unknowingly, since it is sold in most major outlets, including supermarkets and takeaways, without always being labelled as halal.

Birds

Every year in the UK we slaughter around 950 million birds for food consumption, including chickens, ducks and turkeys.
90% of chicken production in the UK is in intensive windowless sheds which house 20 – 50,000 chickens each.
Due to selective breeding and genetic modification chickens reach slaughter age in just 41 days, in essence meaning they are chicks in an obese adult body.
95% of duck flesh and around 90% of turkey flesh comes from intensive indoor farming.
Organ failure is extremely common, with millions of birds dying from heart and lung failure before they even reach the age of slaughter.
After the bird’s have had their throats slit they are then moved to the scalding tank, where their feathers are loosened prior to being plucked. An estimated 8.4 million birds are still alive at this stage and are boiled alive in the scalding tank.

Egg Laying Hens

Male chicks are useless to the egg industry, so are killed immediately after birth. It is estimated that up to 40 million day old male chicks are killed each year in the UK by being either gassed or thrown into a macerator – this practice occurs in all egg farming systems, including organic.
Female chicks are debeaked and then later transported to the laying farms just before they start laying eggs – where they then spend their entire lives.
Egg laying hens would naturally only lay around 10 – 20 eggs a year, however hens bred for egg production have been selectively bred to lay around 300 a year. In the UK over 10 billion eggs are produced each year, with around 51% of those eggs produced by hens kept in cages.
Beak trimming is illegal in many European countries due to the pain it inflicts, however it is still standard industry practice in the UK.
Hens on free-range farms routinely have their beaks removed without anaesthesia to minimise aggressive pecking and cannibalism, a behaviour caused by extreme confinement.
A free-range egg farmer can legally house 16,000 birds in one building, meaning that they can house 9 birds per square metre of space. This means that many free-range hens live out their entire lives in what is essentially an intensive, overcrowded indoor farming unit.