Essay Example on Protecting Chickens From Anti Cruelty

Many of these were never inspected until 1959 when federal inspection of broilers became mandatory By the mid 1970s the industry had evolved into its modern state with the implementation of nutritional discoveries disease eradication programs genetic improvements through traditional breeding and mechanization and automation technologies Source 7 By 1992 chicken consumption had surpassed the consumption of pork and beef From hatching to slaughter egg laying hens are subjected to mutilation confinement and deprivation of the ability to live their lives as the active social beings they are Source 1 260 million male chicks are killed each year right after hatching because they are unable to lay eggs They are killed through various harsh methods such as being carried through pipes to a plate where they are electrified being gassed or being ground up During all this they are fully conscious and alive The female chicks are painfully debeaked to prevent feather pecking which is a result of the tight confinement in battery cages Of the egg laying hens 95 spend their whole life in battery cages the size of a single sheet of paper If the hens do not produce a sufficient amount of eggs they are starved for up to two weeks in a process called force molting Source 1 Hens live an average of five to eight years in natural settings 

Although when their egg production slows they are slaughtered at the ag of one or two years old Compared to 50 years ago chickens now grow at an unnatural rate of over 300 faster than before They have been genetically modified and selectively bred and fed to grow at the alarming pace Many of these chickens become to big to be able to support its weight causing it to be unable to stand or walk Arsenic is fed to chickens to about 70 of chickens to promote their growth A 2006 study found that 55 of uncooked chicken purchased from supermarkets contained arsenic which is known to cause cancer in humans Source 1 Methods to promote chicken growth are usually found to cause serious health problems for chickens such as disease and early death One examples of this is the uncleared floors they are grown on are usually covered in waste of thousands of chickens Another example is when the lights are always kept on to stimulate growth causing the chickens to eat more and not get any sleep and rest The overweight chickens suffer from heart issues deformities and trouble eating At 42 days old a chicken has ballooned to market size and are slaughtered Labels found on chicken products can often be misleading 

When reading a label that says the chicken is grown cage free people often picture a cute little farm with pleasant living conditions for the chickens during their life This is almost never the case Instead those chickens had grown up in a barn with no windows or sunlight their entire lives Often it is so packed the chickens have to climb over each other to move This leads to many scratches and bruising Products with label free range only guarantee to bird had access to the outdoors Usually in this scenario the chickens are kept in a large barn with a door to the outside with no real proof they were ever able to find it or step foot outside their entire life Some chicken products even contain the label no hormones Using hormones or steroids for chickens has been illegal since 1959 meaning all chicken products should be hormone free The harsh conditions chickens face are hidden behind labels that usually are meant to mislead a customer Federal law states that poultry to be sold as human food must be killed and processed in a facility with continuous inspection which means bird by bird Source 2 This laws helps protect humans from any diseases or harmful conditions Sadly the laws don't protect the chickens quality of life too Billions of chickens are killed each year but there are still no laws that require them to be made insensible to pain before slaughter There are many methods used to slaughter the birds Sometimes they are electrocuted but are able to feel all of the shocks up until death Hens are commonly killed by gassing them with large concentrations of carbon dioxide In some cases the gas does not kill the birds and there have been reports of live hens found at landfills crawling out from piles of decomposing chickens Source 1 There are no federal laws governing the conditions in which farmed animals are raised source 3