IDA Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Chickens’

On September 27, 2011, the Richmond, California City Council voted to end live bird sales at its farmers’ market, effective November 1, 2011. In Defense of Animals partnered with LGBT Compassion to organize weekly protests, petitions, action alerts and other pressures to convince the city to end the cruel practice of selling live chickens at the Richmond Farmers’ Market.

The Richmond mayor received over 1,000 e-mails from local IDA supporters, and she acknowledged these e-mails at the meeting. Nineteen passionate animal advocates spoke in support of the ban and only two people spoke in opposition. All our efforts paid off with a 4 – 2 vote, with the mayor voting for the ban. Supportive Council Member Jeff Ritterman did a celebratory chair spin and fist pump in the air as the room full of animal advocates gave a standing ovation!

The vendor, Raymond Young, has a history of well-documented and shocking mistreatment of the spent egg-laying hens he sells at market. In 2009, San Francisco’s Animal Care and Control cited Mr. Young for 795 cruelty violations, including overcrowding, injuries, and failure to provide water. This was after he ignored requests for corrections.

At the weekly protests, IDA activists repeatedly witnessed the disturbing procedure of two birds being forcefully yanked from their tiny cage and stuffed upside-down into one paper bag with little ventilation. Most of the birds go immediate into a silent shock, but others loudly squawk and scream in fear and struggle in vain to free themselves. We have video of customers putting the birds in their car trunks and then returning to shop at the market. We witnessed children kicking and violently picking up and dropping the bags on the concrete. If there was a dog or a cat in the bag, these customers could be arrested for animal cruelty – a chicken has the same capacity to suffer as a dog or a cat.

There is no regulation or supervision of what happens when these chickens reach the customer’s house. They could be starved, terrorized by pets or children, and a careless or just unknowledgeable slaughter could cause prolonged and immense suffering. Self-slaughter violates California’s humane poultry slaughter laws, which require poultry to be killed by specific methods at licensed facilities – and for good reasons.

Two years ago, live birds were being sold at four Bay Area farmers’ markets. As of this week, they are sold at none, Richmond was the last to finally ban this practice, thanks to the tireless efforts of many animal advocates.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seen a four-fold increase in reported cases of Salmonella Enteritidis in the past three months, amounting to more than 800 cases of this potentially deadly disease every month. Add to that the number of sickened individuals who failed to report their illness.  While there are many different means of contracting Salmonella, health officials have attributed this massive outbreak to contaminated eggs from a factory farming powerhouse in Iowa. This revelation caused the Iowa producer to recall approximately 228 million eggs late last week.

This is in no way an isolated incident; there were dozens of recalls of animal products, everything from beef stew to chicken pot pie, between January and August of 2010 alone.

The news of the egg recall should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen the unimaginably filthy living conditions that hens in intensive agriculture are forced to endure. With tens of thousands of laying hens crammed into tiny battery cages, contamination is unavoidable.  It only makes sense that these eggs would likely infect anyone who ingests them.

An egg that comes into contact with fecal matter or is layed by a sickly hen has an increased potential to be infected by the salmonella virus. In turn, these eggs infect unsuspecting consumers. And if you think you can read the label on the carton to easily avoid a certain production company – think again. These 228 million eggs were sold under 13 different brands across the US. Are consumers really willing to take a blind leap of faith when it comes to their health?

Paul McCartney wisely stated, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” When the FDA urges the recall of 228 million eggs after an unprecedented salmonella outbreak, shouldn’t everyone go vegan?  If the suffering of billions of animals each year isn’t enough to make people rethink their diet, maybe this alarming outbreak will sway people to stop consuming animal products.

Can you even imagine tens of thousands of animals living on top of one another in a putrid, window-less enclosure? The workers in these facilities wear hazmat-like suits complete with respirators and thick rubber gloves. I don’t know about you, but I’m not inclined to eat anything that comes from a place where you have to wear full body armor just to walk through the door.

Nor am I inclined to eat anyone who suffered as these defenseless animals do. Hens in laying facilities live a truly miserable, frustrated existence. By design, these hell emporiums make it impossible for the chickens to do what comes naturally to them: root in the dirt, spread their wings and peck through the grass for feed. Instead, they live covered in their own feces, often forced to share cages with the bodies of their deceased neighbors.

The insatiable desire for increased production leads factory farms to pump their hens full of hormones and antibiotics to stave off constant sickness. These unnatural conditions can lead to illness in the birds, which increases likelihood of infected eggs. All in all, it’s the perfect storm of misery and disease. Why support this cruel, unhealthy industry? I urge you all to share these undeniable facts with your family, friends and coworkers and urge them to consider their diet choices, and educate themselves about where their food comes from. Let’s help create a healthy world free of suffering and disease for both human and non-human animals.

Do something powerful for Earth Day – Go VEGAN!

I have some great news for the planet. The food and drink an average person consumes are the single largest determining factor of one’s overall ecological footprint. Why is this good news? Because knowing this, it’s easy and affordable to make important improvements in your own global impact. You don’t need to buy a hybrid or get solar panels to make the biggest impact.

Our food choices have dramatic consequences on the environment. Reducing or eliminating the consumption of animal products is one of the most powerful ways an individual reduce his or her carbon footprint. What we put into our bags at the grocery store actually has more environmental impact than whether we bring reusable shopping bag or drive a hybrid to the store. Animal agriculture is responsible for many of the world’s most serious environmental problems- global warming, water use and pollution, massive energy consumption, deforestation, loss of biodiversity and spices, as well as the deep impact of fishing on our oceans.

When it comes to global warming, farmed animals and their byproducts are responsible for 51 percent of annual worldwide human caused greenhouse gas emissions. This is according to a new report from two prominent World Bank environmental advisers. Based on their research, they conclude that replacing animal products with plant-based foods would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. They advise that this can reduce emissions even more than the actions currently taken to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

A study by the University of Chicago found that consuming no animal products is 50 percent more effective at fighting global warming than switching from a standard car to a hybrid.

Earth Day is April 22 and events will be taking place all over the world during the month of April. This is a perfect time to educate people who care about the planet about one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems around the world, animal agriculture. Write a letter to the editor and educate your community. Please check out our Eco-Eating pages to get information on this important issue.

Reducing or eliminating the consumption of animal products is one of the most powerful ways an individual can stop harming the environment. The next time you’re assessing a food’s ecological footprint, be sure to remember: organic is important, local is good, but vegan is best.

A plant-based diet is by far the most ecological dietary choice we can make