“When birds get it, it eats their muscles and bones and organs away until they drop dead,” Mike Weaver, a West Virginia chicken farmer in the video, told me. “The bird just rots away; it turns to mush.”
Eric Hedrick, who raises 1.1 million chickens a year in West Virginia, said he had no evidence that the disease harms humans, but added, “I’d be apprehensive about buying a chicken in the market.”
Both Weaver and Hedrick raise their chickens for Pilgrim’s, one of the country’s biggest chicken producers. Bill Lovette, C.E.O. of Pilgrim’s, refused to comment. A company spokesman, Cameron Bruett, said that all sick birds are screened out and never make it to the table, and that even if they did, there would be no health risk to humans.
Weaver
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“I wouldn’t say it is dysfunctional,” Weaver told me. “More like it is functioning very well for the companies and their executives only, and very poorly for farmers and consumers.”
The animal welfare issue is a bit complicated. Chickens raised for meat roam within a barn, so while conditions are grim, these chickens are at least better off than egg-laying hens crowded into tiny cages.
I’m also struck that less than 5 percent of the meat chickens die prematurely, which is lower than the mortality rates for humans in many countries I report in. In Angola, one child in six dies before the age of 5.
Yet terrible things happening to children shouldn’t excuse abuse of animals. Moreover, Leah Garces of Compassion in World Farming argues that modern chicken genetics constitute a form of abuse: It is inhumane, she says, to breed a bird with a huge breast that its legs can barely
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“It’s their own body.” She has a point: Many chickens today stagger about, sometimes on splayed legs, or mostly just sit down.
Poultry farming now is entirely different from what it was when I was a farm kid in Oregon with our family flock of chickens. Today’s business model is infinitely more efficient, but it also raises environmental concerns such as antibiotic overuse and is fundamentally oppressive for animals and farmers
Fluids drain from the carcass before moving on to the rubber fingers. The array of fingers makes quick work of removing the feathers, leaving the bird bare. Finally, the bird’s innards are removed in what is a mostly mechanical process. Machines then spray an antimicrobial rinse on the chickens before food safety inspectors check each bird for broken bones, abrasions and bacterial infections. To ensure food safety, every day, workers thoroughly sanitize the entire processing facility with hot water and food safe cleaning agents. The poultry leaves the first facility resembling the oven-ready bird that is familiar to most U.S.
One example of one of the companies is Perdue Farms. The company likes to make sure they have reliable producers. “Producers, in turn, are responsible for providing housing that meets Perdue 's standards for poultry welfare and biosecurity, and for caring for the birds on a daily basis” (perduefarms.com), which means Perdue makes sure that all of the farms meet their standards to provide their product in a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly manner. In turn for the proper care of the chickens, the company provides the farmers with the resources they may need to properly prepare their product. This includes the equipment, the food for the animals, and then all of the scientific experts and lab technicians that are working with veterinarians and poultry welfare officers to research what will help the company to grow their product
Chickens are one of the top most tortured animals in factory farms. Farmers get the most money for chickens that are heavier and have enlarged thighs and breasts. Like most factory farmed animals, broiler chickens are raised in overcrowded cages their entire life, and become very aggressive. Because of this aggressiveness the employees of the farms cut of their beaks and toes without any type of painkiller or an anesthetic just to keep them from fighting. After being “debeaked” some chickens are then not able to eat and starve. Layer chickens lay 90-95% of the eggs sold in the U.S. (2013b) The torture starts the day they are born. Chicks are placed on a belt, where an employee than picks up each chick to see if it is a male or female. Newborn male chicks are thrown into trash bags, ground up alive, crushed, and killed many other inhumane ways.
Chickens have to endure suffering that no living thing should have to go through. The egg laying chickens have to be forced into tiny cages without enough room to stretch their wings. Up to 8 hens are crammed in to a cage that is the size of a folded newspaper, about 11"-14". Stress from the confinement leads to severe feather loss so the chicken will be almost completely bald in the cold cages. When the chickens are of egg-laying age, there beaks are cut off without any pain killers to ease the pain, they do this so the chickens don’t break their own eggs and eat them because the chickens are hungry.
Henning, B. (2011). Standing in Livestock's ''Long Shadow'': The Ethics of Eating Meat on a
... animals can become infected as the meat is infested with pathogens. There is furious debate over the issue of overuse of antibiotics to treat animals.
According to the article, “The Unhealthy Meat Market,” by Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times (2014), Kristof asserted that the meat industry particularly Tyson Foods has done more harm than good. Consequently, to sustain the high demand for meat especially chicken, there has been a negative repercussion on both humans and animals, the environment, as well as, the economy (Leonard). Most chickens in order to reach the level of maturity desired by Tyson are bred to grow “huge breasts.” Hence, Beacham of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stated that “These birds are essentially bred to suffer,” which she classifies as raising “exploding chickens.” Furthermore, the conditions under which chickens are reared
Animals trapped in factory farms are severely abused and tortured from birth to death. Chickens sometimes will be starved for up to 2 weeks and given no water to shock their bodies into moulting, chickens and hens will have their beaks removed to prevent fighting between other animals. Pigs will get their tails cut off to stop other pigs biting them off. These cruel procedures are done to minimise as few of animals dying as possible so more product can be created by the farmer. Within factory farms, animals are abused with overuse of antibiotics to prevent disease and maximise their body growth to create a higher yield of product. According to Animal Rights Action, 2 out of 3 farms are now factory farmed worldwide and factory farming is only increasing this is leading to more animals being raised for slaughter, abused and tortured, mentally and physically. This is not fair. How would you feel losing your child minutes after it's born? As within factory farms, female cows get their calves are taken away from them within minutes they are born never to be seen again. This leaves these poor female cows depressed which causes them to lose weight and because of this are slaughtered as farmers want to maximise their yield of
However, scientist have begun to find that farm animals such as chickens have bacteria in their food that has resisted even the strongest antibiotics. This is extremely worrying because animals such as chickens, cows and pigs are consumed by people. Which means that if the animals is infected, the infection can pass to the human population. For now these bacterias are harmless but the problem still remains; what would happen if out animal food supply is infected and we are unable to cure it?
Recent concerns regarding the risks of Avian flu and other exotic diseases prompted some local poultry farmers to adopt strict biosecurity protocols in order to keep their birds safe. ...
Many people in today’s society find pleasure and relaxation by going to a park or public place to feed bird’s old bread or French fries from a fast food restaurant. Little do most people know that this causes problems among birds such as taking from their ability to find normal food, changing their migration patterns to causing protein deficiencies or over intake; that can cause health problems in mostly water fowl species. The most common health concern that is caused from birds being fed by humans is Angel wing, this is caused by birds eating too much protein and this comes from eating things such as bread or foods full of carbohydrates. Angel wing is known under many names: flip wing, drooped wing, dropped wing and many others(Johnson).
Chickens are the most abused farm animals. In supermarkets chickens are different than they were 40 years ago because of the conditions they go through in the factory. Factory workers put these chickens or hens through chronic pain and it effects them greatly. Chicks are "debeaked" by searing their beaks off with a hot blade. "The beaks of chickens, turkeys, and ducks are often removed in factory farms to reduce the excessive feather pecking and cannibalism seen among stressed, overcrowded birds" (The National Humane Education Society). Egg laying animals can also be starved to shock their bodies into molting. Force molting is when chickens or hens are starved or denied any food for up to two weeks. This can contribute to suffering or early disease of chickens. "It's common for 5% to 10% of hens to die during the forced molting process" (Lin, Doris). Factory farms dominate food production and put animals through abusive environments that cause them
It is horrifying to know the fact that the processed food that we eat today is once animals that are processed alive. The ignorance of the companies has caused the suffering of these poor animals. Gale (2013) writes, “.[media] do not tell us that chickens are the most tortured animals in factory farms and that most chickens have to stand on their own feces all day and end up getting litter burn from their manure. hens are often crammed together in cases so tiny that they do not get enough room to even lift a single wing—which then immobilizes them for their entire lives.”
One reason most have them is for the eggs, chickens produce about 1 egg a day depending on the breed. When you raise your own chickens you control what they eat and they give you wonderful eggs in return. Most people think it is the same as a egg we buy at the market, well it isn’t. If you have ever had a farm fresh egg you will not want to buy store eggs again. The eggs that you buy at the market are from farms, but mass production farmers. These poor chickens are bred just to provide eggs; they usually are in a box/cage or a room with many, many other chickens. Feed only a mix that is usually the cheapest, no bugs, no grass. I mean the eggs are “normal”. They get shipped to a warehouse where they sit and wait to be shipped to markets all over. They have a expiration date because FDA requires it. Fresh eggs can sit on the counter without refrigeration for weeks, as long as they are not fertilized. A chicken that has access to a run with bugs, worms, grass, treats they get a little extra, so they produce an egg that has a deep yellow/orange yolk. It is so much tastier than a store bought egg. Chickens can also be considered a pet, me I picture myself with a cup of tea sitting outside near my garden with the hens roaming around. Like I would my dogs or cats, they will come up to you; kids can even pick them up
“Disease raises concerns about animal farms in Iowa.” Thegazette.com. Gazette, 21 Sept. 2012. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.