From cage-free chicks to puppy mills and Avian flu: Republicans are trying to roll back animal protections

A proposed federal law would wipe out existing state laws that prevent farm animal brutality and the spread of disease

Many animals raised for meat in the US spend their lives in spaces barely bigger than their own bodies. Pregnant pigs are held in gestation crates so small they can only sit, stand or lie down in them. Chickens are packed into battery cages so crowded they often can't extend their wings. And calves raised for veal are packed into crates without enough room to turn around.

While these conditions are part of what makes factory-farmed meat so cheap in the US, a growing number of consumers are rejecting these brutal practices, with more than a dozen states even enacting their own laws to ban them. But a new proposal in Congress would reverse these advances in animal welfare, threatening to upend years of work - and victories - by animal rights activists, farmers and food safety advocates.