Instruments of Pain: 10 Devices Used to Kill, Restrain, and Abuse Animals

Animal-abusing industries would prefer that you never learn about the torture devices below. They often disguise these tools with sanitized names to hide the pain they cause to animals. How many of these cruel devices have you heard of?

1. Nose Rings

The meat and dairy industries stab thick brass rings through cows’ and bulls’ sensitive noses to control them. The rings cause lasting pain and are used to drag animals by the face, restrain them, or stop calves from nursing with spiked versions that hurt their mothers.

2. Bullhooks

Elephant suppliers’ weapon of choice, bullhooks have been banned in several cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida. Trainers use these sharp metal weapons to force miserable elephants to do as they’re told— or suffer the painful consequences.

3. Restraint Chairs and Straitjackets

In laboratories, experimenters strap monkeys into restraint chairs and straitjackets to keep them still during tests.

4. Electric Prods

Sometimes called “hot shots,” electric prods are used in rodeos, circuses, and horse racing to get animals to do what their exploiters want at a particular time, such as perform a trick, run faster, or buck violently.

5. Dehorning or Disbudding Tools

Dehorning cows is an excruciatingly painful standard practice on dairy farms. Farmers remove cows’ horns or the tissue that will turn into horns using guillotine dehorners, sharp wires, hot irons, or caustic chemicals.

6. Bucking Straps

Used in rodeos, these ropes or straps are tied around animals’ abdomens, forcing them to buck wildly in an attempt to free themselves from the torment.

7. Hot Blades

Workers on today’s farms cut chickens‘ and turkeys‘ beak tips off with a hot blade, which makes eating difficult and can cause lifelong discomfort and pain.

8. Chains

Chains are used to restrain animals in circuses and roadside zoos and to shackle dogs outside in all weather extremes.

9. Gestation and Farrowing Crates

Mother pigs are often confined in tiny metal crates while they are pregnant and nursing. The crates are so restrictive that the animals can’t even turn around, leaving them trapped for almost their entire lives.

10. Glue Traps

Sold to unknowing customers trying to keep out “unwanted house guests,” glue traps are one of the cruelest methods of killing animals in existence today. These thin sheets of cardboard or plastic coated in adhesive condemn animals to slow, agonizing deaths. Mice, birds, and other small animals caught on glue traps often rip out their fur or feathers, break bones, or even chew off their own limbs in panic before dying from exhaustion, dehydration, or suffocation. Despite the cruelty involved, retailers like The Home Depot still sell these devices—even though they fail to address the underlying causes of infestations, such as access to food or entry points, and instead cause extreme suffering.

These devices are designed for one thing only: to dominate and hurt animals. Once you know the truth, you can refuse to support any industry that uses them. Help us raise awareness of the horrors that animals face by sharing this page on Facebook now.