Chicken coming home to roast?

By Maneka Gandhi
Op-Ed
The Pioneer
Thursday, January 8, 2004

Three months ago, my sister saved a chicken that was
being cut by a butcher and brought her home. We named her
Lorna and she lives in the house with three dogs. She is
friendly with them, responds to her name and to
instructions, is loving and curious, as bright as any of
the other animals we share the house with. If she had
been killed she would have been just another statistic,
instead of being the friendly, bright, active companion
that she is now.


Broiler chickens are chicks reared and killed as meat.
The total number of broilers in the world was 20 billion
in 2000, with 25 per cent in the US (all supplied to fast
food outlets like Kentucky Fried Chicken), 14 per cent in
the EU and 19 per cent in China. India is now not only
raising huge numbers of broilers in factory farms, but
people like Venkateshwara Hatcheries, Pune, who also
supply Kentucky Fried Chicken, are exporting them in
lakhs to be eaten abroad. A secret film taken in
Venkateshwara Hatcheries shows the appalling cruelties
inflicted on them and the horrible manner in which they
are tailed.

As production increases, any semblance of decent
treatment to a chicken meant to be killed by the farm
factory owners, has disappeared. They are kept in
windowless, barren and crowded sheds holding tens of
thousands of birds for the whole of their brief six to
eight week life and there are no laws to protect them.
The floor is covered with straw and woodshavings and
their own faeces and urine and there are rows of feeders
and drinkers. There are often 25 birds crowded into one
square metre in this airless ammonia-filled room.
Standard broiler chickens are reared to their slaughter
weight (around two kg) very rapidly. They reach the
slaughter weight in 40 days of being hatched - a normal
chicken reaches adulthood at six months.

Intensive and selective breeding (choosing the largest
and fastest growing) has reduced their immunity to
disease. Broiler chickens have a mortality rate of one
per cent week, seven times the rate of laying hens of the
same age. Because they grow too fast, most broiler
chickens suffer from painful lameness due to abnormal
skeletal development or bone disease and have difficulty
in walking or even standing. Lame broilers spend 86 per
cent of their time lying down as they are in pain.

Their legs are bent inwards or outward or are twisted.
Many have bacterial infections that disintegrate the top
of the leg bones. Some have swollen joints, arthritis,
ruptured ligaments. They are unable to reach up to their
drinking water containers and go without water for
several days. Breeding for increased breast muscle means
the broilers' centre of gravity has moved forward and
their breasts are unnaturally broadened (imagine if you
had your chest artificially inflated to ten times its
size) which affects the way they walk and puts additional
stresses on their hips and legs. Their hearts and lungs
often cannot keep up with their bodies' fast growth.
Acute heart failure kills up to three per cent of
broilers. In the UK, 88 million broilers may die in the
EU from heart failure annually.

High stocking density in sheds restricts the broiler
chickens' behaviour and causes health problems. It leads
to lameness, breast blisters, foot-pad dermatitis, etc. A
survey of 50 chicken flocks found more than 20 per cent
of birds with open sores on their feet. Crowded sheds
lead to wet litter, increased air pollution and poor
temperature and humidity controls. A normal chicken walks
the whole day, pecking for food and looking after the
flock. These chickens do not have space to move an inch
and often walk over their co-sufferers, many of whom are
dying in front of them.

Because of the overcrowding, most of them get bacterial
diseases and the scratches they have got from scrambling
over one another get infected and the skin becomes
woollen and bright yellow as the pus spreads. The lack of
air and the high levels of dust increase respiratory
diseases and irritate the eyes. They pant deeply all the
time.

The broiler chicken industry finds all this irrelevant.
Whether the chickens suffer a life in hell, whether they
are riddled with disease and pass it on to the consumer,
is irrelevant as long as the weight is right. Put
yourself in the chickens' place. Does she deserve this?
If you are reborn as a chicken, this is where you will go
unless you do something about this now. Stop buying
chicken and start protesting against its export from
India.

Jai Maharaj
Creator of newsgroups alt.jyotish, alt.religion.hindu,
alt.language.hindi, alt.steiner.coffee.bar
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti

Panchaang for 16 Paush 5104, Wednesday, January 7, 2004:

Shubhanu Nama Samvatsare Uttarayane Moksha Ritau
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