Birth to Slaughter House
Poultry
Egg hatcheries produce a great deal of the poultry consumed by humans today.
This has become a multi billion dollar industry where chickens are produced by
the millions to provide the public with sufficient amounts of poultry meat and
eggs. Eggs are incubated in Hatcheries for 21 days, until they are ready to
hatch. After the chicks have hatched, male and female chicks are separated. The
chicks are vaccinated against certain diseases that can cause death and
illnesses. At this stage, the Chicks are ready to be transported into trucks. Chicks
are placed in metal cages and have very little space to move. The chicks are
transported to their new homes called "Broiler Farms". Chickens that
live on Broiler Farms are known as Broiler Chickens. When the birds arrive at
the farm they are "debeaked". debeaking
is a painful process where the tip of the bird’s beak is clipped off using a
hot blade. This is often done without the use of anesthetics and it is very
common that the beaks become infected. 1 in a half to 2 thirds of the beak is
removed to discourage pecking and tearing of other birds, as being kept in
closed confinement results in irritation and can lead to cannibalism. Debeaking
has been linked to chronic pain and eating problems. Many birds find it hard to
cope with this pain and fall deep into depression. These innocent girls have only
arrived, and yet they are treated with no sympathy. Broiler chickens are
genetically altered to grow 2 to 3 times faster than their natural size at a
much rapid speed. This is done to produce more meat in a shorter period. These
genetic alterations cause severe health problems for the chickens that can
affect humans who later consume this meat. Chickens can carry diseases that we
humans can get affected by. All animals inside and out are filled with bacteria
and viruses, chickens can carry around a share of germs and it's a big issue
about whether we can get sick from these viruses and bacteria. The scary
diseases are coming from animal factories "let's not call them
farms". Factory production facilities rely on antibiotics to keep their chickens alive. Antibiotics are given to chickens to promote
growth and prevent diseases before they're slaughtered and sold in stores. This
has caused up to 8 million cases of antibiotic-resistant bladder infections in
women. Chickens are injected with antibiotics from the day they're born to help
them grow bigger faster. The problem
today is that these injections are the same antibiotics sold in the U.S and
Canada for humans to be treated from bladder infections, and other conditions,
which causes our bodies to become resistant to these drugs as we consume too
much of them.
Broiler
chickens live in large sheds called "grower houses", these houses
only give them half a square foot of space to move around and have the
abilities to nest, roost, or ever flap their wings. Grower houses are
windowless, with temperatures composed through ventilation. Many of the
chickens die from diseases and stress caused from being overcrowded. Broiler
chickens live stressed lives, closed in sheds that don't even have enough space
to stand, let alone turn around. Broiler chickens spend 45 days in grower
sheds. Once they have reached the proper market weight they are transported to
slaughterhouses. Chickens that have made it this far
into the process are faced with extravagant amounts of pain and suffering
during their transportation to the slaughterhouse. As the hens are loaded into
crates, they are violently grabbed by their already broken and battered legs
and are thrown into densely packed cages. Injured birds known as “downers” are
thrown into piles where they are left to slowly die. Able bodied hens are
transported onto crates stacked on the backs of trucks. During the long trip to
the slaughterhouse, hens are denied any food or water for many days at a time.
Protection against heat or the cold are not provided, so suffocation and
insufficient amounts of body heat lead to a massive number of deaths. Once they
have arrived at the slaughterhouse, the birds are depressed, starving, and very
weak. The loading and unloading of hens into and out of the trucks mount to
many more injured birds and cause a huge amount of deaths.
Thousands
of chickens are killed each hour at slaughterhouses. Fully conscious birds are
hung by their feet from shackles on a moving rail.
These
birds are greatly distressed and are commonly infected by tumours and open
wounds. During this process workers kick, punch and mutilate live birds.
Chickens that are stuck in the metal cages are tossed into a pile of other
wounded birds. Often times these birds are still breathing and so they are left
to slowly die.
Layer
hens
Just as soon as the eggs hatch, farmers
separate the minute old chicks by gender into two groups. One for the males,
and the other for the females. Male chicks are useless in the egg industry as
they do not lay eggs, and are not bread to produce enough flesh to be sold for
consumption. Every year in Canada 10s of millions of these innocent young birds
are thrown into massive dumpsters where they are suffocated, ground up during
full consciousness, or gassed to death. Female chicks on the other hand endure
more pain and suffering and are the most neglected and abused of the two.
Females are used as layer hens and are kept in tiny wire cages stacked one on
top of the other in large windowless farmhouses which house thousands upon
thousands of chickens at a time. Cages contain 4 to 8 hens, and are battery
operated. These cages are so small that there is not enough space for hens to
stretch and spread their wings. Natural behaviours such as roosting and dust
baths are out of the question as well. Chickens are often unable to fully
stand, or raise their heads without hitting the top, and in efforts to make
more space for themselves peak their heads out of the cage walls which more
than often leads to trouble releasing and so many hens are left to slowly die
of dehydration and hunger. When one of these birds dies, they are usually left
to decompose. Trampling and suffocation are a few main reasons for death. Along
with, lack of nutrition, untreated wounds, and broken limbs. Like broiler hens,
layers are exposed to toxic levels of ammonia and many other fumes emitted by
feces and urine. The placing of the cages one on top of the other, leaves hens
on higher levels of cages to drop down their excrements on the lower level hens
which over time, causes serious burns and creates agonizing pain. Cage life
forces chickens to stand on top of sloping wired cage bottoms which over time
painfully forces their feet to grow around the metal wires. Since there are so
many chickens live in one factory farm facility, a few people are not enough to
help raise and take care of these animals. So clean cages and the removal of
dead carcasses are rare. Not many people
know but chickens are very social and intelligent creatures. They love to roam
around and are able to recognize one another. They lay eggs according to the
moon cycles, so factory lights are routinely turned off and on for measurable
lengths of time to promote malting. A process in which hens shed feathers and
re grow new ones. Forced malting is done to increase production of eggs. The
lifespan of a chicken is between 15 to 20 years but in the egg farming
industry, hens live for as little as 1 and a half years. When layer hens are no
longer able to produce eggs, they are shipped to slaughterhouses where they will
be used in lower quality poultry products such as chicken stalk and cat and dog
foods.
Action
plan
You can make a difference. It all starts
with the right attitude! If we all
choose sustainable poultry meats, and eggs from happy, and healthy chickens
raised in free ranged pastures on farms, we can show factory farming companies
that we do not support their treatment of chickens and that we do not advocate
the idea of cruelty to animals. Every penny counts. If we do not buy from these
industries they will lose a great deal of profit and will be led to produce
fewer chickens. Another way we can stop this horrid treatment of chickens is
that we can boycott stores that sell poultry meats. Stores with great power
such as No Frills or Metro. If we show resistance to buying meats sold here,
and demanding that these stores buy from family owned farming companies, they
will have no choice but to do so as they will be losing many customers. This
will lead us to not only a more humane way of killing and consuming poultry
meats, it will also be more beneficial towards our health and the health of
these animals.
Video Response
During
sales production, butchers keep poultry meats in refrigeration with glass
windows to protect from bacterial growth. Though this is the case not many
butchers use this process as a good way to promote meat sales. Super markets as
Kensington market and many small local markets tend to keep their meats
uncovered, with little or no sanitation such as, removal of blood and other
fluids from meats. These meats tend to look unhealthy compared to meats sold
from proper refrigerated areas which keep their meat safe and attractive to the
consumer. During the summer meats that are left uncovered are largely prone to
bacterial growth as they begin to rot. This leads to attract insects such as
maggots and the common house fly. These insects do not only eat the meat, but
they also lay their eggs insideit. Once consumed this affects humans as it can
lead to many different types of infections in the digestive track. Urinary
bladder infection is common among women who consume high amounts of E Coli
bacteria. These infections can be painful and can lead to severe kidney
failures. All these issues can be prevented by, using proper sanitation and
valuing the health of the consumer.
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