The cruelty of roast chicken
Every year, 77 million broiler chickens are killed to satisfy the appetites of New Zealanders. Most were only around 5 weeks of age when they died.
Few people know that the chickens we eat at KFC or buy at the supermarket were raised in crowded sheds, each containing up to 45,000 birds. The sheds stink of ammonia. Vast numbers of birds are crowded together, making it hard to manoeuvre about. Broiler chickens have been bred to put on weight abnormally fast, putting tremendous strain on their young hearts and bones. The feeders and water sippers in the shed are gradually raised as the birds grow. Small or injured chickens cannot reach these, and die of thirst and starvation. Around 3 percent of birds (over 2 million per year) die prematurely in broiler sheds.
Broiler chickens are routinely dosed with antibiotics to make them grow faster. By 1999, 57 per cent of all antibiotics used in New Zealand were used on animals – two thirds of these mixed in with the food of intensively farmed chickens. Using vast quantities of antibiotics encourages the spread of anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria, endangering human health. Microbiologists believe the anti-biotic resistant bug VRE has already spread from chickens to humans. Chicken feed contains meat, bonemeal, bloodmeal, and tallow – ingredients the birds would never consume in nature. The fouled litter within the shed is only changed when the birds are taken away to slaughter, and sometimes not even then.
At around 38 days of age, the chickens are caught by their legs, thrown into crates, and transported to the slaughterhouse where each bird is shackled upside down to a chain. As the chain moves along, the chicken’s head dips into a waterbath stunner. Workers then slice across the back of the chicken’s neck. The waterbath stunner does not actually kill the bird. Occasionally a bird may regain consciousness, but be unable to move because the spinal cord has been cut – and the slaughterhouse worker will not be able to tell that the chicken is awake and aware. Some chickens die miserably through having their heads pulled off by the “automatic head puller” machine while still conscious.
Obviously, the best thing you can do to stop this cruelty is to stop eating chickens! However, for more information, and more ways to save animals, see the following links:
SAFE challenges KFC cruelty
http://www.safe.org.nz/Safe-News/View-Article/SAFE-challenges-KFC-cruelty/
Meat Free Media
Campaign against Tegel Cruelty
http://www.tegelchicken.co.nz/
New Zealand Vegetarian Society