The hidden industry of chicken farming
Born to die! This is the fate of chickens all over the world.
Taken from birth the boys are grinded, drowned, and electrocuted, unless their fate is to be meat. Girls are shoved into cages as big as an A4 paper with other chickens whose only purpose is to produce eggs for money until they die. The deceased lay amongst faeces at the bottom of hundreds of cages made of just steel rods with no sunlight or grass for these curious and social birds. I believe this is a cruel and inhumane way to treat any living thing and it should stop.
Many countries including New Zealand have chickens living in awful conditions. There are a few ways chicken can be kept when laying eggs or getting ready to be meat: free-range, which is the kindest option that offers time outside, barn laid is when heaps and heaps are in a big barn, battery cages which I mentioned above where hens are stuffed into tiny cages with basically nothing, and colony cages which is essentially the same thing with a perch and a small scratch paper except they have even more chicken stuffed in.
Recently the New Zealand Government released a new welfare code which bans farmers from using standard battery cages for hens that lay eggs. From 2022 onwards, it was illegal for hens to be housed in battery cages in New Zealand. Colony cages have been approved as a new caged housing system to replace battery cages.
Hens are held in these conditions so they can continuously produce eggs until they die. Battery cage farms host as many as 45,000 hens in one shed. In New Zealand approximately 230 eggs are eaten per person and every year we consume a billion eggs. Each year, retail sales exceed $250 million. And it doesn't matter about the welfare of chicken’s because it is easier to have them in tiny cages.
Factory grown chickens are bred to grow unnaturally large and unusually quickly- their hearts and lungs can't keep up with their accelerated growth and they suffer stress, breathing difficulty, skin lesions, foot burns, exhaustion and broken bones. Some can not even walk and just lay on the ground with their legs sticking out unnaturally. Chicken in battery and colony cages combs flop over because of no sunlight and they sometimes have no feathers due to the fact being bunched with so many other chickens they pick out each other's feathers.
Would you like to live in these conditions? Because I assure you you would not, some people don't care and even mock those who try to change their minds about chickens and just comment on how delicious they are. I'm not trying to tell you to stop eating chicken but to think about the type of brand of eggs and chicken you buy and try to choose free range. Your one decision of change can slowly but surely change a whole industry of torture for chicks, we have a choice to make when these chickens don't, so I hope you consider the life behind the food you eat.
Bibliography
https://animalequality.org/news/moy-park-chicken-cruelty-investigation/
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/country-calendar/episodes/s2022-e6
https://www.pianz.org.nz/video/a-chickens-life/
https://www.youtube.com/c/peta/videos
https://safe.org.nz/blog-articles/battery-vs-colony-cages-spot-the-difference/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvHHHZjDQOk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScbTUIUy2FM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myqgi0Y-aXg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHxRdOC51SA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEpInOIVP7I