The actual cruelty is part of the mass food process. It isnt intentional and it isnt common, but it does exist.
And if we try to stop it the single mother in Detroit will not be able to buy chicken for $.89 a pound.
Mistreating animals has nothing to do with selling price. As a matter of fact, mistreating an animal will only result in damage to the meat of that animal once it reaches the slaughter plant. Damaged product raisies costs, it doesn't make it cheaper.
Tyson and other giant corporations raise animals in huge facilities and those animals are taken care of just as good as animals that are free-ranged. They get to live in a facility that is constantly monitored and adjusted to provide the best enviroment for that animal. It is always warm or cool, whatever the animal requires, they always have something to eat and drink, their feces fall thru openings in the floor so they aren't in contact with them, they get medication at the slightest hint of an onset of sickness or disease. One could argue that most animals in today's modern production facilities have it better that most humans.
The animal rights activists only want the general public to believe that modern animal production in todays world is wrong because they don't want anyone to eat meat. They think an animal is equal to a human. Animal cruelty should not be looked at as anything different than physical cruelty to a human. If that is abuse such as hitting or kicking or whatever then so be it., I agree, you should not do that to an animal as well but making an animal live in a pristine enviroment is not cruelty in anyway shape or form. It's just a total misconception that animal activists want everyone, who don't have a clue about animal production, to believe.