Posted by Gabbix2 on November 27, 2004, at 14:28:46
In reply to Re: Whoops--again-Larry Hoover » Gabbix2, posted by Larry Hoover on November 27, 2004, at 13:48:22
This was taken directly from the Paws link I posted:
Chicken, Turkey and Duck
Like all birds, chickens are capable of feeling pain. The "broiler" chicken is raised for meat. Kept crowded into large sheds, chickens are fed to become as heavy as possible as quickly as possible. Because the broiler chicken is slaughtered between 6 and 8 weeks of age before its skeleton has fully developed, the forced growth leads to painful bone disorders, deformities, fractures, fissures and dislocated vertebrae. Although the Humane Slaughter Act requires that "food animals" be slaughtered humanely, all birds are excluded from this act and the most common ways of slaughtering them are extremely cruel. It's important to note that "free-range" birds are only free from cages. They are still tightly confined, suffer frequent injuries and are slaughtered inhumanely.Although the egg industry gives consumers the impression that its hens are living out their lives in a natural setting, the factory farm shows a very different picture. Battery cages are small wire cages, not much larger than a file drawer, in which hens are confined with up to 6 other birds for their entire laying lives. The practice of "forced molting" periodically starves the hens of food for up to 2 weeks as a means of increasing egg production. In order to minimize the damage done to each other as a result of the stress of overcrowding, the hen's beaks are sliced off with a hot blade. When their laying life is over, "spent hens" are also sent to slaughter, where their badly damaged bodies can not be packaged whole, so they are ground to make soups or pot pies.
Turkeys and ducks are also part of the factory farm system. *Turkeys are force fed to become so large that they are often painfully unable to stand*. Ducks used to produce foie gras or pate are tightly confined and continually force fed until their livers painfully expand to 10 times the natural size creating this "delicacy."
poster:Gabbix2
thread:420601
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041122/msgs/420961.html