THE
INCREDIBLY CRUEL EGG INDUSTRY
A recent article in the New York Times,
covered diseases that spread in the egg industry. Ex-Egg
Industry Executives Jailed in Salmonella Outbreak - The New York Times
Diseases like salmonella are very common in
the industry, just because of the way farms are designed. Factory farms fit as many animals as possible
into as small as space as possible with as little care as possible. The industry itself decides what is humane. They are not covered by any animal cruelty
laws, so the industry gets away with pretty much anything. Factory farms are an epidemic waiting to
happen. According to the movie “Resistance”
148,000 Americans die every year from superbugs. Superbugs are bacteria that mutated to become
antibiotic resistance. 80% of all antibiotics
used in the world are given to animals in factory farms. Factory farms are so over- crowded and
because they want to grow animals as big as possible in as little time as they
can, animals are pumped full of drugs-hormones and antibiotics. This should be
a big concern to everyone on this planet.
There is an egg farm near my home, so I did
some research on it. It is called the
S&R Egg Farm. They proudly boast
about their fresh eggs-no hormones, no antibiotics. They even offer for sale a DVD
about their history. They advertise it as “the deeply moving story”.
This egg farm proudly boasts they have 2.4
million chickens and 151 employees. That
means each employee has to take care of 16,000 chickens. Could you take care of 16,000 pets? Keep in mind that out of those 151 employees,
many have nothing to do with the care of chickens. Many work in the offices and
in shipping and receiving. So that figure of 16,000 per worker is very generous.
S&R Egg farms proudly shows a picture
of chickens that are crammed into cages, with cages on top of each other with
the caption “world leader in science based animal welfare”. As I said above, the industry itself
determines what is humane and what is not. You can just look at this picture
and see this is no way to treat an animal.
S&R Egg farms has a giant chicken in
front of their facility, yet that is the only chicken you will ever see. These
poor birds are keep in barns and never get to see the light of day. They do not get fresh air, only fans. In most egg farms, the air inside the chicken barns is so toxic, you need a mask to go in. A chicken
normally can live to be 10-12 years, but in the egg industry it’s 18 months.
Once their egg production slows down they are killed. It’s all about money.
I have tried to contact S&R to find out
what they do with male chicks and have not received an answer yet. Standard
practice in the industry is to discard the male chicks as they are
useless. They do not lay eggs and they
will not develop large enough for meat. So male chicks are either thrown alive
down a meat grinder, or tossed into trash bags and suffocated. Again, these practices are considered “humane”
by the industry.
I have pet chickens and I can personally
tell you they are amazing animals. They are smart, friendly, and loving.
Scientists consider chickens descendants of dinosaurs. Yet, we kill over 314 million chickens every
year for eggs and meat. You can help save chickens. Ditch the eggs, take
cruelty off your plate, go vegan, please.
Additional sources to learn more:
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