Frightening Facts About Factory Farming
...over looked most people have no idea of how neglected and abused cows, pigs, and chickens really are. In the United States alone, nearly six billion chickens are killed annually for food, and close to 280 million chickens supply the sixty eight billion eggs that Americans consume each year. Chickens have a complex pecking order and are very social animals; about ninety chickens are capable of living together harmoniously and still keep their pecking order. However, in the highly overcrowded conditions in the factory farms, it is impossible for them to keep their natural pecking order. Instead, the chickens become frustrated and begin to peck each other to death, desperately trying to cut down the chicken population. So, in order to solve this little “problem,” baby chickens are de-beaked at a very young age. (Johnson 1) The de-beaking process includes taking a very hot razorblade to slice off the chick’s beak, causing an extremely painful experience as well as serious discomfort later in life. This is only, of course, if the job is done correctly; sometimes careless mistakes can cause the razor to cut off the chick’s entire face, a cruel uncomfortable death. Once the bird is de-beaked the sadly disfigured bird is packed into a wire cage sixteen by eighteen inches large, along with five or six other hens. To the owners of these factory farms this would be adequate room for a chicken to move around, considering each chicken is limited to an area almost as large as this piece of paper. (Johnson 2) This cramped lifestyle would not be the choice of anyone, not to mention the fact a hen has a wingspan of about thirty two inches. Think about being stuck in a normal sized prison cell, but with ten other inmates, any claustrophobic person would not last half an hour. The chickens, like humans, do not like the crowded conditions and begin to become very violent and begin to fight other birds over food and water. The people who work in the farm are usually oblivious to the fact that chickens like many other animals are very social. Given an opportunity to walk around outside and interact with other chickens gives them a chance to feel part of a community. This is very important to chickens and is seen quite often when a cage full of birds starts to peck each other to death because of the overcrowded conditions. Yet, people who work in factory farms still assume the size of the cages is sufficient because all they are concerned about is quantity and speed. Once the birds are stuck in this cage, they are never released. They are stuck there with no where to wander around to get exercise just pinned to the corner of the cage waiting anxiously to get food or water. The conditions of the cage are almost even worse than the fact that they cram too many chickens into a small area. The cage floor is sloped at an angle so the weaker chickens are left to be crushed under the weight of the other chickens, only to be left to die from suffocation, dehydration, or starvation. Those chickens that do survive live a very painful life. The cramped conditions cause the spread of disease among the chickens; it is also not uncommon for chickens to have heart attacks and/or crippled joints caused by the cramped conditions. Another injustice served by the chickens is the fact that very rarely is an injured or sickly chicken seen by a professional or a veterinarian. (Johnson 2) Once again, the concern for the bird is not there, rather it is for the profit. As if all of this abuse and mistreatment was not enough, it only gets worse for the hens that live an almost full life. A hen that has stopped laying so many eggs is either slaughtered or subjected to what the factory farmers call, forced molting. (Johnson 2) Forced molting is a horrific and repulsive thing to do. This method is used to make the chicken think it is going through a very tough winter, resetting the chicken’s biological clock, causing the chicken to start laying even more eggs. The act of forced molting involves keeping the birds in darkened cages, without food for up to two weeks. (Johnson 2) This process is used to squeeze every last egg out of the chickens. This type of action taken just to get a few more eggs per chicken is one of the most inhumane and cruel acts ever done to an animal. Since there are so many chickens in one shed, any disease introduced to the area are quickly spread throughout the chicken population as a result the chickens are often treated with all sorts of antibiotics and other drugs. This practice is not allowed among the organic farmers (farmers who let their animals freely graze and socialize). When these types of drugs are used on the chickens in such a big population there is bound to be a chicken or two that cannot handle the drug which results in death to chickens that can’t fight the disease on its own. The chickens that are too diseased to eat food are beaten to death with a metal pipe or sometimes a piece of wood with a nail on the end. These methods are used because chicken is cheap and a healthy alternative to red meat, therefore it is in high demand. The high demands encourage the continuation of “mass-production” as well as the abuse that comes with the territory. The treatment of anim...