World News for Students of English

29-08-2014 15:00

Scenes that look like something straight out of a horror film. These cows on a North Carolina dairy farm are being forced to wade through their own waste just to eat a meal.

Every day, the pool of faeces and urine grows deeper, leaving the animals with painful sores spreading all over their bodies.

The shocking video footage of the cows being forced to live in their own corrosive, bacteria-laden waste was obtained by charity People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

While walking to and from the milking parlour, while eating and while sleeping, with no grass, straw or bedding to lie down on to rest, the cows, whose sensitive noses can smell odours up to 6 miles away, cannot escape the stench of the waste or the flies that swarm around them.

Just one day after the charity released the eyewitness video footage, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources reportedly announced that it had cited the farm for six violations of state law.

According to news sources, the farm has 10 days to correct these violations and the agency is considering fining the farm.

Difficult words: dairy farm (farm which produces milk), wade (walk), faeces (waste of the body), urine (yellow liquid waste which comes out of the body), sore (painful place on your body), corrosive (damaging), bacteria-laden (full of bacteria), milking parlour (area where the milk is taken from the cows), odour (smell), stench (unpleasant smell), swarm (fly in numbers), cite (to call somebody to court for doing something bad), fine (to punish somebody for doing something illegal).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com