Male or female chickens can be raised for meat, but only
females can produce eggs, so about 280 million male chicks
per year are disposed of by being shoved into plastic bags
and left to suffocate. They cannot be raised as "broilers" or
"fryers" because they have not been bred to produce a lot of
muscle. Since the primary objective in modern chicken
farming is to breed a profitable chicken, "broilers" and
"fryers" suffer numerous health problems--affecting their
bones and legs--because they are so "meat heavy." Hens bred
to be super layers are so stressed that their accelerated
laying span lasts only a year and a half, two years at most,
compared with the 15-20 years that hens produce eggs under
natural conditions. They now lay about twice as many as the
120 eggs per year that hens laid several decades ago, before
factory farming, and their tired bodies pay the price.

"Broiler" Chickens

Chickens raised for meat are kept in large warehouses, which
typically hold 25,000 birds.(3) Chickens can function well in
groups of up to about 90, a number low enough for each bird
to find a niche in the pecking order. In crowded groups of
thousands, however, no such social order is possible, and, in
their frustration, the birds peck at one another so vehemently
that they draw blood and even kill one another. Genetic
selection, to keep up with demand and also keep production
costs down, causes extremely painful conditions. According
to veterinary professor John Webster, "Broilers are ... in
chronic pain for the last 20% of their lives. They don't move
around ... because it hurts their joints so much." PETA's 1994
undercover investigation into the "broiler" chicken industry
revealed birds suffering from dehydration, respiratory
diseases, bacterial infections, crippled legs, heart attacks,
and other serious ailments. Rather than being euthanized,
sick birds may be beaten to death with a piece of pipe or may
have their heads "whacked" with a nail driven into a piece of
pipe. Others are simply left to suffer and die on their own.

It is not only their numbers that make the birds' lives
unnaturally stressful. They have no access to fresh air
because the warehouses, which are permeated by the
overpowering odor of ammonia, are ventilated by machines.
If the machinery breaks down, or if it proves inadequate for
extreme temperatures, thousands of chickens suffocate in a
matter of hours. In a typical case in Union County, N.C.,
more than half a million chickens died during one heat
wave.(4)

Vaccinating the birds soon after birth and keeping them
segregated by age help keep down the mortality rate.
Nevertheless, as many as 5.5 percent die before their 7-8
weeks of hell are over.(5) To keep the birds wakeful and
eating, lights are kept on for 23 hours a day. Agriculture
researchers are now testing the use of red contact lenses to
render the chickens confused and to blur their vision and thus
reduce movement and cannibalism.

Laying Hens

The egg industry is now almost completely automated.
Feeding, lighting, temperature, and even moulting are
controlled by machines; nothing is left to nature. Eggs roll
onto a conveyor belt, which carries them out of the hen
house. Conveyor belts also deliver food and water to the
cages, which are stacked in several tiers. Cage floors are of
wire mesh, so waste falls from the upper tiers onto the
chickens below. A single cage, roughly 16 by 18 inches,
holds five to six hens, each with a wingspan of 32 inches. The
cage floor slopes toward the food and water troughs, so that
weaker hens are often crushed to the bottom, their feathers
worn away by constant contact with wire, and finally killed.

Chicken feed is specially formulated to encourage weight
gain. Hybrid corn is fortified with Vitamins A and D (to
eliminate the nutritional need for sunlight) and laced with
antibiotics to fight infections that come from the filth of
close confinement and pesticides to control fly populations.
The industry has even developed ways to recycle the
chickens' own wastes back into the diet.

In a typical 80,000-hen warehouse, about 20 birds die per
day.(6) When the level of egg production drops too low to
make a profit, all the hens go to slaughter, and their battered
bodies are turned into "pet" food, chicken soup, feed for
animals on fur farms, and other miscellaneous products. The
hen house is hosed down in preparation for the next
unfortunate batch of birds.

Meanwhile, at the chicken processing plant, water is used as
if there's no tomorrow--as many as 100 million gallons a
day(7)--and slaughterhouse workers experience pain and
even permanent limb damage (carpal tunnel syndrome)
caused by repetitive motion. Fear of unemployment and
poverty keeps them at their gruesome task.

The Unhealthy Result

Many people, fearful of the high levels of fat and cholesterol
in beef and other "red" meats, are eating more chicken,
believing that poultry is a healthy alternative. They could not
be more wrong. Not only does chicken contain the same
amount of cholesterol as beef (25 mg per ounce)(8), it is
also likely to be contaminated with leukosis (chicken
cancer), which infects 90 percent of factory-farmed
chickens (9), or salmonellosis, which has also been found in
as much as 90 percent of federally inspected poultry.(10)
According to the Food and Drug Administration, poultry is
the number one source of food-borne illnesses, causing an
estimated 1,680 deaths per year (11) and millions of cases
of "stomach upset" or "food poisoning." An inspector has
only two seconds per bird to check for signs of
contamination.(12)

Eggs are also hazardous to health. Although experts now
consider the average egg to contain 213 mg of cholesterol,
rather than the 275 that they thought previously (13), eggs
cause food poisoning, particularly from salmonella, and
contribute to obesity, heart disease, and other serious health
problems. In England in late 1988, Junior Health Minister
Edwina Currie remarked that "most of the egg production in
this country" is contaminated with salmonella. As a result of
her candor, egg sales in England suddenly dropped 60
percent, and Ms. Currie was pressured to resign.(14) Two
months later, a confidential government report was leaked
that stated that up to two million infections a year may be
caused by the consumption of eggs and poultry in the United
Kingdom.(15) Because the symptoms of salmonellosis are
similar to flu symptoms, many people have salmonella
poisoning without realizing it.

Eating chicken is no more healthy or humane than eating
other kinds of meat, and eggs are no safer to eat now than
they were before we revised their cholesterol level. These
foods are hazardous to your health, and there are several
good substitutes for them. Try tofu scrambler instead of
tired old scrambled eggs, egg replacer in your baked goods,
and marinated tofu at your next barbecue, and put the chicken
torture chambers out of business. Perhaps the only way to be
sure a chicken dinner won't poison you or your family is to
throw it away.

References

1.Lippman, Thomas W., The Washington Post, Nov. 26,
   1982, p. E8.
2.Robbins, John, Diet for a New America, Stillpoint
   Publishing, 1987, p. 53.
3.Mason, Jim, "And a Cow Jumped Over the Moon,"
   Animals' Voice, Feb. 1989, p. 45.
4."Drought Taking Heavy Toll in World's Chicken
   Capital," The Boston Globe, July 25, 1986.
5.Conniff, Richard, "Superchicken: Whose Life Is It
   Anyway?," Discover, June 1988, p. 36.
6.Gupton, Bill, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner,"
   Creative Loafing, Jan. 16, 1988, p. 10A.
7.Giehl, Dudley, Vegetarianism: A Way of Life, Harper
   and Row, 1979, p. 105.
8.Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
   "Chicken Is Not a Health Food," PCRM Update,
   Jan.-Feb. 1988, p. 3.
9.Robbins, op.cit., p. 67.
10.Robbins, op.cit., p. 303.
11.Kaplan, Sheila, "Something to Crow About," Legal
    Times, Aug. 14, 1989, p. 1.
12.Gupton, op.cit., p. 10A.
13."Laying 'Low Cholesterol,' " The Washington Post
    Health Section, May 23, 1988, p. 20.
14.DeYoung, Karen, "Crack About Eggs Costs British
    Official Her Job," The Washington Post, Dec. 17,
    1988, p. A13.
15.Herman, Robin, "Britain's Rotten Eggs," The
    Washington Post Health Section, Feb. 14, 1989.