Animals as Food

CHICKEN

"I became a vegetarian not just for my own health...but for the health of the chickens." -- Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer:

For further information on the threat chicken consumption poses to human health, see the page entitled Good For You. As for the health of the chickens:

Broiler chickens are raised in windowless sheds. "Broilers" almost ready for market, weighing between four and five pounds, may have as little as half a square foot of space per chicken - less than the the area of a standard sheet of typing paper. Lighting is manipulated to control eating and aggressive behavior which stems from stress, overcrowding, and presumably boredom as the animals are unable to engage in any of their natural food-searching, scratching behavior on the concrete floors.

The birds are de-beaked and have their claws clipped and wattles and combs cut off with a hot knife machine. The machine cuts through sensitive tissue similar to the quick of a human fingernail.  

20% of hens raised in factory farms die of disease or stress.

80% of all poultry are given antibiotics.

Chickens are exempt from the Humane Slaughter Act. At the slaughterhouse they are hung upside down, fully conscious, on a moving rail. They are dipped in electrified water which stuns them enough to immobilize them but not knock them unconscious. A mechanical blade slices their necks and they bleed to death. However the mechanical blade is far from 100% effective. Chickens missed and boiled alive are referred to in the industry as "redskins."

Karen Davis from United Poultry Concerns is a wealth of information on this issue. To learn more, check out: http://www.upc-online.org/slaughter/report.html