Millions of Chicagoans are getting some real food for thought with the launch of over 600 new Mercy For Animals pro-vegetarian ads on the Chicago Transit Authority’s bus and subway systems. The ads reveal images of abused cows, pigs and chickens confined to tiny cages on factory farms, and asks riders, “How much cruelty can you swallow?”

The ads read, “Before being turned into burgers, hot dogs, and nuggets, farm animals suffer painful mutilations, extreme confinement, cruel handling, and violent deaths.”

The campaign runs for two months – with the ads being viewed over 35 million times.

The campaign kick-off is an eye-opening reminder that life on the farm isn’t what it used to be. The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past are now distant memories. On today’s factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates, and other confinement systems. These animals will never root in the soil, build nests, or do anything that is natural to them. They won’t even feel the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter.

Animals on today's factory farms have little to no legal protection. Cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats, such as neglect, mutilation, transport through all weather extremes, and gruesome and violent slaughter, is commonplace on today’s farms. Yet farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions.