https://theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/will-pay-for-happy-chickens
"When we list the changes humanity has wrought upon the earth, those that are
chicken related are not foremost among them. And yet, along with the explosion
of the human population has come chickens—lots and lots of chickens.
We slaughter nearly 80 billion of them every year to eat, and egg production
has more than quadrupled in five decades.
Keeping up with such enormous demand has created some gnarly living conditions
for the poor birds. Until about a decade ago, for instance, nearly all
egg-laying hens were stuffed into cages so small that they couldn’t move or
spread their wings.
Then there is the matter of the billions of hours- and day-old male chicks that
are culled every year. Male chicks don’t lay eggs and are the wrong breed for
meat, so they are decapitated, gassed, or shredded to death in industrial meat
grinders. (I’d add a photo here of bags of adorable baby chicks waiting to be
killed, but my heart cannot take it.)
Meanwhile, modern broiler chickens—those raised for meat production—are genetic
anomalies. Selectively bred for decades so that they fatten up quicker, these
“Frankenchickens” or “turbochickens,” as activists call them, are quadruple the
weight of a typical chicken that lived 70 years ago. The fowl we eat today grow
so fast that they struggle to stand under their own heft. They also experience
more pain over their short lives. In the US, about 6% die before they make it
to slaughter, experiencing heart failure and other health problems as their
organs struggle to keep pace with their growth.
The good news is that chicken welfare is improving on all three fronts."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
