Veganist_ Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World - Kathy Freston [65]
At hatcheries that hatch egg-laying hens, millions of unwanted male chicks are discarded every year because they’re of no economic value—they don’t grow fast enough to be raised profitably for meat, and they’ll never lay eggs. I’ve seen Dumpsters filled with thousands of dead and dying male chicks; and I’ve also seen these day-old hatchlings dumped into a manure spreader to be put out on the field like fertilizer. I could hear faint chirping sounds coming from the manure spreader. Several chicks were trying to survive, perched on debris in the spreader, trying not to drown in the muck. I am struck by the irony of baby chicks, symbols of spring and new life, being killed immediately after emerging from their shells.
When documenting conditions at a Texas stockyard, I saw this cow in a pen, with her head flopped over to one side. I asked the stockyard worker what happened and was told that the cow was brought to the stockyard with her calf, and they were forcibly separated as is common in the cattle industry. Cows have very close bonds with their young, and when mother and calf are separated—usually at day one—the mother bellows and cries for hours and sometimes days. This mother fought to be with her calf, but she was restrained and couldn’t go after him as he was dragged away. When she lunged toward him, someone slammed the gate on her and her neck was broken. Her eyes were wide open, full of fear, moving and darting around. Sometimes her head would swing wildly across the floor, but she couldn’t lift it. There was actually a groove in the pen where her head had swung back and forth. I felt sick and pained and helpless. She was to be used for meat, so there was little chance she would be put out of her misery.
And here is an account by Josh Balk, who now works at the Humane Society of the United States.
Josh Balk’s Story: Undercover at a Chicken Factory
In September 2004, on behalf of the organization Compassion over Killing, I got a job working undercover for a few weeks at a chicken slaughter plant. While I had seen plenty of animal slaughter footage, I had never experienced how truly horrific and heartbreaking the process was until I witnessed it firsthand as an employee at this plant.
My first day working at the plant was spent filling out forms, watching videos, and listening to presentations. At no time did anyone mention animal welfare, nor did trainers ever provide me any guidance on “proper animal handling.” In fact, during several hours of videos, there were only about three seconds of footage of live animals, and that was during a montage of different activities that require workers to lift objects.
My second day began in the live hang room, where workers shackle chickens onto the slaughter line. As soon as I entered the room, the smell of chicken waste hit me so hard that I struggled to keep myself from vomiting. The line leader led me to my position on the line and gave me only one sentence of instruction: “Pick up the chickens upside down and put their legs in the shackles.” With that, he walked away. I was on my own.
Speed was the most important objective, since our workday ended once a quota was achieved. Workers grabbed the chickens as quickly—and thereby as roughly—as possible from the conveyor belt, often picking them up by one wing, one leg, or their necks. They often forced the chickens into the metal shackles so hard, I was amazed their legs weren’t ripped off. Although the birds were supposed to be hung upside down by both legs, sometimes they dangled by just one.
After only thirty minutes of working on the line, two things stood out more than anything else: how the animals were treated and how they reacted.
Many of the chickens responded with screams and violent physical reactions from the moment the workers grabbed them. The screaming,