The Disturbing Facts of Poultry Industry

Chickens are often underestimated and arguably the most abused animals in the world.

Hens are highly social and intelligent beings, when studied in their natural environments, they show great intelligence and have social hierarchies as sophisticated as those formed by dogs and other mammals. They have the ability to recognize about 100 faces, practicing self-restraint, distinguish between good and bad, communicating using 19 distinct vocalizations and many more traits which we believe to be carried by some primates only. A simple interaction between a mother and young begins even before the hatch.
But these active and fun-loving creatures whose average life span ranging between 5 -10 years live a cramped and shorten life of 1-2 years in the industry.

Chickens raised for their flesh, called “broilers” by the chicken industry are genetically tuned to maximize so much weight that heart attacks, organ failures and leg deformities are common and those who survive are trucked to slaughter. They are only about 4-7 weeks when consumed – Still just babies but looking at them you won’t know. A poultry industry expert stated that if a human baby is grown at a same rate as these commercial birds grow, at 18weeks of age that human child would weight 227 kilograms.

Eggs laying hens are crammed together in cages called “battery cages” are forced to urinate and defecate on themselves further enhancing the spread of diseases. Living in these dark and confined conditions they are deprived of sun bath, roosting, foraging for treats in the ground, fluffing out their wings and out of this frustration these birds become aggressive. Imagine being forced to gain an unhealthy amount of weight and spending your whole life in badly lit, unfurnished flat with a carpet of your excretion.

Due to their fabricated aggressiveness industry slice off their sensitive beaks with a hot-searing blade with no painkillers – which they use pretty much the same way we use our hands, to touch and feel, pick up objects, and for preening and nesting. This process termed as DEBEAKING is followed so that their blunt edges cannot maim the neighbouring hen, who they’d otherwise peck at in frustration. This process has proven to give long term chronic pain and even depression among them.

The egg and meat industry reject male, sick and deformed chicks and are either tossed to bags to suffocate or crushed to death.
The profit-making hens once exhausted are still money makers delight as they are shipped to other industries and are generally turned cat or dog food because of their battered flesh.

This repulsive manner in which these sentient and smart birds are being treated is morally condemnable and is also illegal as per the Prevention of cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. And yet they continue to suffer.

Just due to our intellectual and emotional superiority we are in no position to abuse them. They are our equals in suffering and have every right of being treated with compassion and kindness.

STILL CRAVING FOR SOME BUTTER CHICKEN?