The Birds

by Compassion Over Killing

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“Layers” (chickens raised for their eggs), “broilers” (chickens raised for meat), and turkeys are forced to endure horrific abuse.

Only female chickens lay eggs, and since the breed of egg-laying chickens is totally different from that of bulked-up broiler chickens, male chicks are useless to the egg industry. So they are gassed, crushed, discarded in trash bags to suffocate, or simply piled one on top of another, to die from dehydration or asphyxiation. They have it easy compared to female chicks.

While many countries are banning the battery cage system because of its inherent cruelty, egg producers in the United States still cram hens into small, wire cages for their entire lives.

These hens spend their days unable to engage in nearly any of their natural habits, like perching, nesting, dust-bathing, foraging, roaming, or even flapping their wings. Frustrated and overcrowded, the birds often attack each other. To reduce the impact of stress-induced aggression, soon after the chicks are born, parts of their beaks are seared off with a hot blade without painkillers. Debeaking causes them both acute and chronic pain.

When their egg production declines, “spent” hens are killed and sent to rendering plants as their flesh is too battered to even go into canned soup.

Broilers—the chickens we eat—and turkeys are confined in large, warehouse-style sheds housing tens of thousands of animals. To reduce the pressures of overcrowding, factory farmers amputate turkeys’ toes and mutilate their beaks shortly after birth, causing pain and physical conditions that makes eating, walking, and even standing difficult.

Chickens and turkeys grow so abnormally fast due to selective breeding and growth-promoting antibiotics that their legs and organs can’t support their enormous weight, leading to disabling bone and joint problems. The air in the sheds is heavy with toxins and ammonia from feces, and the birds must endure the stench without relief.

While their lives are filled with suffering, their slaughter is horrific, as well. Before they can be transported to slaughterhouses, the birds must first be gathered. Egg-laying hens are pulled from wire battery cages that can catch—and rip off—their wings, legs, and feet. Broiler chickens and turkeys are snatched by workers who gather three or four animals at once.

The birds are crammed into crates stacked one atop the other inside the trucks.

At slaughter, they’re torn from the crates and shackled upside down onto automated metal racks.

Some birds are stunned in electrified baths, but most are left conscious, yet paralyzed.

Those who are stunned often regain consciousness before their throats are slit and end up being immersed alive in tanks of scalding water that de-feather their bodies