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why vegan- for the animals
Chickens and Turkeys
Chickens are inquisitive, interesting animals who are as intelligent as mammals such as cats, dogs, and even primates. They are very social and like to spend their days together, scratching for food, cleaning themselves in dust baths, roosting in trees, and laying in the sun. Dr. Chris Evans, administrator of the animal behavior lab at Australia’s Macquarie University, says “As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list [chickens’] attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys.”
Chickens are precocious birds. Mother hens actually cluck to their unhatched chicks, who chirp back to their mothers and to one another from within their shells! The intelligence and adaptability of chickens actually make them particularly vulnerable to factory farming because, unlike most birds, baby chickens can survive without their mothers and without the comfort of a nest—they come out of the shell raring to explore and ready to experience life.
Turkeys are intelligent animals. They have great full-color vision, enjoy having their feathers stroked and even enjoy listening to music, with which they will often sing quite loudly to. In nature, turkeys can fly 55 miles an hour, run 25 miles an hour, and are among the most protective mothers in the world.
300 million turkeys and 9 billion chickens are slaughtered for human consumption each year in the US.
These birds represent over 95% of all land animals slaughtered for food. They are crowded into large, dimly lit sheds that hold as many as 30,000 birds. Each bird gets less than a square foot of space. Because they are bred to gain weight quickly, many birds are crippled by their own weight and rendered unable to walk. They are then unable to get to food and water or to defend themselves from the other birds who trample them on the way to the feeding station.
Over time, the building fills with the poisonous stench of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane. After seven weeks, the animals are crammed into plastic cages for transport to slaughter. The chicken industry is aware that a certain percentage of the birds will die prematurely, but they accept this because extreme crowding and quick weight gain increase overall production and boost profits.
Chickens bred for egg production suffer an equally horrific fate. The male chicks are useless to the egg industry, so they are dumped into plastic bags shortly after hatching, left to suffocate slowly, or ground up for chicken or other animal feed. The females have the tips of their beaks seared off with a hot iron to prevent stress-induced cannibalism. Research indicates that chicks suffer chronic pain for five to six weeks after beak searing.
Five to seven birds are crammed into 20x24 inch 'battery cages’ stacked on top of one another; the chickens are packed so tightly in these cages that they cannot fully extend their wings.
In addition, they must stand on a sloping wire mesh floor, which causes them foot and leg problems. The wire mesh of their cages rubs away their feathers and leaves bruises and lesions on their skin. When the birds are about fifteen months old their egg production declines, so they are “force-molted”—kept in low lighting and fed a low-calorie diet for seven to 14 days, which stresses their systems, resulting in increased egg production for about six more months. Afterwards, the birds are sent to slaughter.