PROJECT BY AIMAN MUNIR 2020-B.Env-005 AND GUL RUKH 2020-B.Env-020 DEPARTMENT: ENVIRONMRNTAL SCIENCE BS-SEMESTER 4RTH COURSE TITLE: ENGLISH 4 SUBMITTED TO: MA’AM SHMAILA FAROOQ POULTRY CHICKEN AS THE MOST ABUSED ANIMAL ON EARTH INTRODUCTION Chickens are widely known as a very unintelligent animal. This crude classification is perhaps given to chickens without much thought and may, at some point, create our views about chicken as food animals. Chickens account for 95 percent of animals farmed for food around the world. In the United States, 99.9 percent of chickens raised for meat, known as “broiler chickens,” are extremely limited inside factory farms. 1. Why do you think poultry chicken is the most abused animal on earth? Arguably the most abused animals on the planet earth are chickens. In the United States, approximately 9 billion chickens are killed for their flesh each year, and 305 million hens are used for their eggs. Whereas the vast majority of these animals spend their lives in total imprisonment and captivity from the moment they hatch until the day they are killed. More chickens are raised and killed for food than all other land animals combined, yet there is not a single federal law that protects them from abuse. 2. Farm chickens begin their lives when they hatch along with thousands of other chicks inside giant incubators. In what ways are farm chicken badly exploited? Farm chickens are exploited in different ways, only a few days after these chicks hatch, they're overcrowded into shipping crates and are then sent to factory farms. Where they will never meet their parents and these chickens never see the outdoors. Spend a very short life inside large shacks where each chicken has less than a square foot of floor space. By the time these chickens reach the right size, they are hovered into poultry crates (yes, hovered, and this is actually better than the old way of catching them by hand) and transported to the slaughterhouses. 3. When we talk about meat chickens, we mean the white-feathered ones who sway from side to side and wobble around on legs that can barely take the mass of their immense breasts. What do you think is the problem for the modern chicken? There are immense problems faced by the modern chickens, as these animals are genetically ‘turned’ to maximise weight gain at all cost. And it’s a very heavy and large cost that these animals must pay, in the form of painful lameness that is to say the chickens are unable to walk, skin lesions appear, leg fractures occurs, difficulties are faced in breathing and even heart failure. When only the chickens are 40 days old they’re slaughtered and consumed, still if you look at it they are just babies. And the houses or shacks in which these giants are nurtured or raised add insult to injury. 4. Factory farm conditions for these animals are extremely poor. The barren sheds which are far away and isolated shacks are stuffed full of chickens and provide little to keep these naturally curious, playful animals from abject boredom. What constant challenges do they face while being farmed? Factory farm chickens do face constant challenges, as the sheds they are kept in are very isolated and most sheds do not provide more than four hours of ‘darkness’ at a time. And for most of the time, the chickens are bathed in harsh artificial light and crowded with tens or even hundreds of thousands of other chickens. “Just imagine being forced to gain an unhealthy amount of weight while spending your whole life in a poorly lit, window-less, confined and empty unfurnished flat with nothing to do. Not fun, right? It would be quite a job to design a less appropriate house for a living, breathing, feeling animal”. 5. We’ve both seen these kinds of sheds in person and it’s a shocking sight. Imagine a swelling carpet of white (chickens), together with continuous loud and prolonged noise and with the smell of ammonia that’s hard to forget once you’re back in the fresh air. How do you think Chickens are suffering on an unparalleled scale? “If you could observe the life of just one of the chickens in a shed, you’d surely be shocked. Now take that suffering and multiply it by 40 billion. This is the number of chickens that are grown in factory farms every year worldwide. And this figure is rising to 60 billion if we include those chickens that are likely farmed to higher welfare standards”. So for every human on the planet, there are nine chickens. Talk about being outnumbered. And it’s not evenly distributed, with some countries consuming more than their fair share. A typical US consumer, for example, is eating a whopping 90lb of chicken per year. That’s around 15 large chickens. China is considered as one of the largest chicken consumers and they may be about to eat a whole lot more chickens as there has been a rising occurrences of swine flu in pork. This has therefore led to the demand of consumers to shift from pork to chicken meat. 6. The demand for chicken meat is exponentially increasing with every day that passes…how will planet Earth become The Planet Chicken? As many plans were made for the production of lab-grown chicken meat, we imagined the position of poultry in the world. Hens outnumber humans nearly three to one, and the demand for them is still persistently growing. Researchers have suggested that “one of the most lasting marks of our impact on Earth will be the sudden appearance in the fossil record of numerous chicken bones. And that will be the time when Planet Earth can rightly be called Planet Chicken.” 7. The fact that the demand for chicken meat and eggs is increasing day by day globally. It is certain that every day billions of chickens are exploited…what are the cruel practices involved? In today’s world, the fate of chickens is to raise and nurture them for the purpose of human food, that is to say for the production of meat and eggs. The gruelling journey of their lives ends up in the slaughterhouses. Before the terrifying journey, chickens are caught by workers and placed into poultry crates. The catching process of chickens has been described by one of the reporter at the Delmarva chicken farm. And mention that about “a half-dozen men, grabbing chickens by their feet, shoving them into the drawers of 6-foot-high crates. The men can catch more than 6,000 birds in an hour.” Moreover, study of catching practices concluded that “The number of freshly broken bones found in live birds before they are even transported to slaughterhouses. Therefore, the number of old healed breaks found at slaughter is unacceptably high.” Once at the slaughterhouse, the birds are dumped from their crates and hung upside down in chains, further injuring their legs, which are already brittle and often broken. Their throats are cut open by machines, and they are dipped in scalding-hot water to remove feathers. They are often conscious and aware throughout the whole process. 8. And what about egg laying chickens? Laying hens are the birds exploited for their eggs, by the industry, are crowded together inside wire cages where they do not even have enough space to spread their wings. As they are crowded so closely together, the normally clean animals are enforced to urinate and defecate on one another. Their sensitive beaks are cut off so that they won’t peck each other out of frustration created by this peculiar captivity. After their bodies are exhausted and their egg production drops, and shipped to slaughter, generally to be turned into chicken soup or cat or dog food because their flesh is too bruised and abused to be used for much else. Whereas, male chicks after being used as the breeder for egg laying hens and further unable to produce enough flesh for meat industry therefore they are killed. Every year, 200 million of these young birds are ground up alive or tossed into bags to suffocate. Hens bones are so brittle from egg production that the electric current would cause them to shatter, hens often are not even stunned before their throats are cut. 9. We know that Factory farms cannot raise billions of animals per year without using drugs that allow the animals to survive cramped, filthy, and stressful conditions that would otherwise kill them. Millions of pounds of antibiotics are fed to chickens. What are the impacts of such a huge amount of antibiotics on the poultry chicken itself, the environment and the humans that consume the meat and eggs? According to a scientific study, chickens metabolize only about 20% of the drugs fed to them: The remaining 80% is released in their faeces. Every year 3 trillion pounds of waste produced by factory-farmed animals which is usually used as a fertilizer and consequently ends up leaching into water bodies along with the drugs and bacteria that it contains. This unchecked use of antibiotics is the main cause of developing environmental and human health problems. According to a U.S geological survey 14 antibiotics used in animal agriculture and human medicine were found in almost 50 %of the waterways tested. Arsenic-laced additives are mixed into the feed of about 70 % of the chickens raised for food, but chickens do not eliminate all of it in their waste which can lead to arsenic poisoning in the consumers especially children. For example in a U.S Arkansas town having largest chicken population legal battles continue on behalf of more than 100 plaintiffs. Residents there have been diagnosed with arsenic poisoning that has led to blood diseases and extremely rare types of cancer. The defendants are poultry producers who have been using an antibiotic (specifically, inorganic arsenic) in chicken feed that becomes toxic in litter, which was spread on nearby crops as fertilizer. One other scientist observed poultry workers’ health and found that more than 40% of the test subjects were infected with campylobacter and that the bacteria were “supersized” and resistant to antibiotics. She remarked, “There have been a lot of stupid things we’ve done as a species … but this (giving animals antibiotics) has to be one of the most stupid. Consumer Reports have found that more than half of chickens studied were infected with E. coli and almost half tested positive for at least one multidrug resistant bacterium. Of the 65 billion eggs taken from chickens every year, more than 2 million are estimated to be contaminated with salmonella. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention cautions, “One contaminated egg can contaminate an entire batch of pooled eggs. Everyone who eats eggs from that batch is at risk for illness.” 10. The over exploitation of poultry chicken for meat and eggs is such a huge problem…in your view what are the possible opportunities for impacts? What steps we can take? As humans we have an amazing opportunity to better transform the lives of billions of animals. The solutions are already available; healthier chickens grown in sheds with more space, natural light and appealing features such as perches and hay bales. These farms can keep these curious, lively animals healthy and active, and must become the new global standard for chicken production. 11. The life of a broiler chicken is short. Though they can live for seven or eight years in healthy conditions, modern industry has perfected a six week lifecycle between hatching and slaughter... What do you think are the side effects? Well Chicks reach their adult weight many times faster than they do under natural conditions; it’s all due to enhanced diets and selective breeding. Because the growth rates are so fast, heart and lung problems are common – broiler chickens essentially have baby hearts in adult bodies. Many are very weak, unable to support their own weight. 12. What rights is the chicken raised on factory farms deprived off as compared to normal chicken? What’s the price of being a broiler chicken? Well Chickens raised on factory farms each year never have the chance to do anything that’s natural or important to them. A baby chick on a factory farm will never be allowed contact with his or her parents, let alone be raised by them. These chickens are deprived of the chance to take dust baths, feel the warmth of the sun on their backs, breathe fresh air, roost in trees, and build nests. Chickens raised for their flesh, called “broilers” by the chicken industry, spend their entire lives in soiled sheds with tens of thousands of other birds, where intense crowding and confinement lead to disease outbreak. They’re bred and drugged to grow so large so quickly that their legs and organs can’t keep up with their flesh, making heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformities common. Many become crippled under their own weight and eventually die because they can’t reach the water nozzles. When they are only 6 or 7 weeks old, they’re crammed into cages and trucked to slaughter. Birds exploited for their eggs, called “laying hens” by the industry, are jam-packed together inside wire cages where they don’t even have enough room to spread their wings. Because the hens are packed so closely together, these normally clean animals are forced to urinate and defecate on one another. The birds have part of their sensitive beaks cut off so that they won’t peck each other out of annoyance created by the unnatural confinement. After their bodies are exhausted and their egg production drops, they are shipped to slaughter, generally to be turned into chicken soup or cat or dog food because their flesh is too bruised and battered to be used for much else. 13. Chickens are slammed into small crates and trucked to the slaughterhouse through all weather extremes. Hundreds of millions sustain broken wings and legs from rough handling, and millions die from the stress of the journey. How far the chicken industry has gone to be cruel in the slaughter houses? At the slaughterhouse, their legs are restrained, their throats are cut, and they’re immersed in steaming-hot water to remove their feathers. Because they have no federal legal protection (birds are excused from the Humane Slaughter Act), almost all chickens are still conscious when their throats are cut, and many are literally burnt to death in the feather-removal tanks after missing the throat cutter. It’s sufficient to say that guidelines that cover the humane slaughter of animals are harder to apply to birds, and in many parts of the world there are no rules that prevent them going through the process fully conscious. 14. The EU is phasing out battery hens, what do you think? Well apparently seems a kind gesture but in reality that means a little bit fancier cages. Battery cages remain the standard for most chickens in the egg industry. Battery hens are egg-laying hens that are kept in battery cages. In these traditional battery cages one hen is kept in one cage and these cages are kept together, often in long rows. Breeders raising laying hens want different characteristics from their birds than farmers raising them for meat, which means there is no use for the male chicks. They are gassed, and around the world hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed this way, in both free range and battery farms. 15. There are many environmental impacts of beef for which many people suggest the alternative of chicken meat ... If we want to take one step towards a healthier attitude to meat, cutting out beef would be a good one. What do you think? Well in my view it would be tragedy if we directly switch from beef to chicken which would ultimately end in consuming more and more poultry. As a result the already burdened chicken population will be more excessively exploited and be adding further to animal misery. There is no easy solution to this environmental issue however we can compensate it if we efficiently play our role in personal level by eating high welfare chicken which means to focus on quality and eat less, avoid supermarket chicken and excessive junks and fast foods, pressurize organizations for animal welfare rights, try to keep our own chicken for eggs and meat which is just to the chicken as well as good for the health when you know exactly where the eggs and meat come from and choosing to become vegan or vegetarian is a good personnel choice which can greatly improve the condition of the most abused animal on earth and end the chicken misery.
