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Courtesy: Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals
Filmed in Ontario.
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Intensive and barren confinement: a poignant
transformation, from four-week chick to caged
hen of eight months |
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Acute respiratory problems from ammonia
fumes, feather dust |
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Nowhere to hide from cage mates |
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Feather pecking, at times
leading to cannibalism |
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Cages jammed with sick and injured hens |
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The disease of this imprisonment is called
caged layer fatigue, but there is more misery to
come for these hens. They will travel to
slaughter packed into bins without food or water
for hundreds of miles, often with missing feet,
legs, and wings that were left behind during
catching. Hens who are still laying eggs are
pasted in egg slime and pieces of shells. |
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Unlike pure bred chickens, industrial broiler chickens are bred to live
6 to 8 weeks from birth to slaughter. They don't
have time to live. What if they're not sent to
market? They die nevertheless after 11 weeks.
Pushed for absolute weight gain, they suffer
from bone fractures, splayed limbs, deformities
and flipover disease.
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“I was almost knocked to the ground by the
overpowering smell of feces and ammonia. My eyes burned
and so did my lungs, and I could neither see nor
breathe…. There must have been 30,000 chickens sitting
silently on the floor in front of me. They didn’t move,
didn’t cluck. They were almost like statues of chickens,
living in nearly total darkness, and they would spend
every minute of their six-week lives that way...."
Michael
Specter, “The Extremist,”
New Yorker, April 14, 2003 |
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Transitional system for small to mid-size
barns allowing birds access to natural light,
socializing in small groups, dust bathing,
foraging on pasture |
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Moves all hens out of cages |
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Allows larger farms to downscale while
capturing higher income markets |
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Smaller farms can erect portable A-frames of
recycled plastic in barns so the flat floor
space a bird is given expands vertically in
winter months. Portable perches and nesting
boxes can be handmade by farmer at low cost |
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Encourages scattered farming with good
nutrient and manure management, ground and
surface water protection, pollution reduction
and energy efficiency |
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Requirement to phase in longer-life,
resilient pure bred flocks within specified
periods of time to replace damaged industrial
genetics (see Livestock Breeding in the Hands of
Corporations, below) |
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