Numbers that need no adjectives
No graphic images, no rhetoric — just counts, drawn from federal agricultural statistics and United Nations data. The scale itself is the argument.
≈ 298 per second
≈ 5 per second
≈ 2,500 per second
Not a simulation — just arithmetic: each annual total below, divided into seconds, multiplied by the time you've been here.
Chickens raised for meat in the United States in 2025 — roughly 26 million per day.
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Poultry — Production and Value, 2025 Summary
Hogs (128 million) and cattle (29.8 million) slaughtered in U.S. commercial plants in 2025.
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Livestock Slaughter, 2025 Summary
Share of U.S. farmed animals estimated to live on factory farms, applying EPA facility-size definitions to the USDA Census of Agriculture.
Sentience Institute analysis; consistent across the 2017 and 2022 censuses per Our World in Data
Land animals slaughtered for meat worldwide each year — most of them chickens. Fish are counted only by weight, so no one knows their number.
UN Food and Agriculture Organization data, via Our World in Data
Each of these figures is a count of individuals. Psychologists call our inability to feel numbers like these “psychic numbing” — which is exactly why they belong in plain view.
