A Good Life?

A Good Life? campaign challenges the myth that farming and eating animals is acceptable as long as they've lived "a good life".

Give veganism a go

Many people believe that consuming animal products is acceptable providing the animals have enjoyed ‘a good life’ – at least up until the point of slaughter. This is because the farming industry is built on a false narrative – one of rolling, green fields and animals grazing freely – and we are exposed to this narrative from a young, impressionable age.

This campaign, launched in 2023, challenged the myth of ‘a good life’ and called on the public to rethink their consumer habits.

What's wrong with farming animals?

What is Animal Aid doing?

To mark the launch of A Good Life?, we teamed up with vegan food company VFC to give away free Vegan Fried Chick*n to passersby in York. We challenged people’s knowledge of how chickens are farmed with a short quiz and, in return, gave them vouchers to buy and try VFC products at home.

Next, we took the campaign to London with a takeover of one of the city’s busiest stations, King’s Cross. We ran a series of billboards and digital ads on the underground, calling on thousands of commuters, day-trippers and tourists to question whether pigs on farms really enjoy ‘a good life’.

Our billboards were accompanied by an ‘advan’, which took to the streets emblazoned with bold messaging: ‘Pigs can live into their twenties. For food, they are killed at 6 months old.’

The Animal Aid team were also out in force, hosting an interactive outreach event in the station forecourt. Joined by independent vegan baker Joyful Kitchen, and dozens of dedicated activists, we challenged passersby to take our quiz on how pigs are farmed in the UK. People were shocked to discover that pigs are routinely mutilated on farms and that the use of farrowing crates continues.

In December, we turned our attention to turkeys and booked advertising space across three major UK stations in Manchester, Glasgow and London, encouraging onlookers to make compassionate choices at Christmas.

The artwork featured a poignant image of a family of turkeys decorating a Christmas tree. The image was then ‘torn’ to reveal the grim reality: rapid growth, mutilations, constant confinement and the eventual horror of the slaughterhouse. The artwork read: ‘On farms, turkeys are forced to grow four times their natural size, causing broken bones. Many can’t move and starve to death. The rest are killed as babies. Turkeys hate Christmas.’

Disappointingly, the agency responsible for approving the ads forced us to reduce our messaging to ‘Turkeys hate Christmas, go vegan this year’, despite us providing irrefutable evidence of their suffering. This was a stark reminder of just how powerful the myth of ‘a good life’ really is, and how far the industry will go to prevent us from revealing the truth.

‘A Good Life?’ challenged a belief system shared by many people: that animals on farms are generally treated well, which justifies the consumption of their meat and milk.

The truth is that there is no justification for denying an animal their freedom, for killing an individual who does not want to die.

Take action for farmed animals

The only way to truly respect animals is to leave them off your plate.