Video shows chicks ground up alive at egg hatchery

[Zomby Woof]

DES MOINES, Iowa – An animal rights group publicized a video Tuesday showing unwanted chicks being tossed alive into a grinder at an Iowa plant and accused egg hatcheries of being "perhaps the cruelest industry" in the world.

The undercover video was shot by Chicago-based Mercy for Animals at a hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. The video was first obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable?" asked Nathan Runkle, the group's executive director, at a news conference in Des Moines. "I don't think that most people would."

The group said that tossing male chicks, which have little value because they can't lay eggs or be raised quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat, into grinders is common industry practice. United Egg Producers, a trade group for U.S. egg farmers, confirmed that.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090901/ap_on_go_ot/us_egg_hatchery_investigation_10


:-(

[rpannier]

1. That's just appalling

I noticed the article has the typical corporate attempt at deflection

A spokesman for United Egg Producers called the proposal "almost a joke." Spokesman Mitch Head said Mercy for Animals had no credible authority, as well as questionable motives. "This is a group which espouses no egg consumption by anyone — so that is clearly their motive."

It's irrelevant what the motives of Mercy for Animals are.
What these companies are doing is disgusting

[Mrs. Overall]

2. The poultry industry in this country is horrendous.

I wonder if they are feeding those ground up chicks to the rest of the chickens.

As the owner of a small flock of chickens--they are amazingly inquisitive and smart and they suffer just like puppies or kitties.

[anneboleyn]

29. I know -- it does seem like these practices could be improved. They are so grotesque, and we call

ourselves civilized. Can't we treat the creatures better, even when they are destined for slaughter?

[Gormy Cuss]

3. How nice of the industry group to confirm that this is standard practice.

They've got some nerve calling it euthanasia.

[timeforpeace]

4. It's gruesome. But what else should they do with them?

[hedgehog]

6. It'd be easy enough to put the male chicks back into one of those boxes and then to set

the boxes into a killing chamber. Squirt in a little excess nitrogen and the chicks fall asleep and stop breathing .

If you eat chicken, then you have to kill the bird first. There is no need to make the animal suffer.


On edit - even PETA Approves:

http://www.peta.org/cak/

[Deja Q]

13. Seconded. We give better treatement to serial killers on death row.

:(

[aikoaiko]

47. Have you ever gassed groups of animals?

Its not so simple, fast, or easy.

[Cherchez la Femme]

28. The question is, is it humane?

Bottom line.

It's an aware, breathing, feeling thing thrown alive into a grinder for Buddha's sake.

There is no need to pull abortion into this, as is below. In legal abortions (first trimester) there is no nervous system (can't feel pain) not to mention no cognition much less brain.


This place is looking more like Freeperville every day and it is NAUSEATING.

[hedgehog]

5. That's just plain wrong. It's true that hatcheries have to dispose of male chicks-

but it can be done differently.

I've kept backyard chickens for 20 years. I can't remember ever having a problem with the birds picking at each other. They do peck, but just enough to keep order.

[EFerrari]

7. It would be so nice if these violent subj lines could come with a warning.

And, yes, I am a weenie. Can't help it. :(

[NYC_SKP]

8. Oh heaven's no...

I cannot watch but I know it is important for this to be brought to our attention and something must be done.

Heavens, no.

:cry:

recommended.

[Maru Kitteh]

9. checkin in to say this kind of barbarism MUST STOP, and a big old FU to the animal haters that

undoubtedly are already present on the thread or the ones who will show up.

I probably won't be back in the thread. I simply can't handle cruelty to animals or children.

[Mari333]

11. same here.

[Lorien]

12. Agreed. nt

[doc03]

10. Strange some people see a baby chick's life

more important than a human life. What is done with aborted humans?

[flvegan]

14. Oh how I wish this was an OP on its own.

:popcorn: :popcorn:

[Batgirl]

17. I agree completely.

Please, doc03, pleasepleasepleasepleaseohprettyplease start a separate thread based on your fascinating observations about how since abortions are legal, it's wrong for people to express concern about the ground-up-baby-chicks.

[doc03]

20. Farmers have been killing off unwanted baby chicks, calves,

pigs, etc for eons. That's just how you get your Kentucky Fried Chicken, a farmer can't afford to feed a bunch of useless roosters or bulls, those are the cruel facts. how would you propose getting rid of them, put them up for adoption? I don't think there is any law against destroying unwanted live stock either.

[Batgirl]

23. I am baffled that you insist on describing various unfortunate farming practices

when, as you yourself alluded, somewhere out there, some woman might be having a legal abortion.

[doc03]

27. I am not a single issue voter

I don't particularly care for abortion, I believe in the right to keep and bear arms many Democrats don't but there are other reasons that outweigh those issues. You don't have to agree 100% on every issue to be a Democrat. There are Republicans that don't agree with 100% of their platform either. Abortion is legal so if a women can live with their decision to abort a baby that's their business.

[Critters2]

37. It's not how I get my KFC...because, due to practices like this, I don't eat meat or eggs.

So, I would propose no longer raising animals and doing these barbaric things to them.

[doc03]

22. You eat hamburger? n/t

[Batgirl]

24. no.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

15. It's not that the chick's life is more important than a human's...

We don't toss babies into grinders. That would be the equivalent action.

Abortion happens to mammals before they are born.

[doc03]

18. So if you put the eggs through the grinder that would be

Ok. If you have ever been on a farm things like that happen every day. If you have a bunch of kittens you don't want you put them in a burlap sack and shoot them with the old 12 ga. If you have a bull calf and you don't want him for breeding you cut his nuts off or send him to the auction for slaughter. I you don't want a bunch of roosters you kill them, that's how it's done.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. I didn't say killing them was wrong.

You compared their killing to aborting human babies.

You can kill the male chicks.

Just some other way...

[doc03]

21. What do suggest, drowning, burning, shotgun, lethal injection,

gas chamber, hanging?

[11 Bravo]

46. Don't you know? Living aborted fetuses are fed into a wood chipper.

(And congrats for one of the more inane false equivalencies ever to darken the pages of DU.)

[Canuckistanian]

16. I don't know if this is such a big deal

If you've ever lived on a farm you know that certain decisions need to be made to keep the farm productive.

If male chicks don't produce, they're gotten rid of. The barn cats cats can take care of that for you, or you can compost them.

On a modern factory farm, there are just a lot more "useless" chicks to deal with. so they have modern ways to deal with it.

Feed is expensive. And if feeding an animal doesn't yield anything of value, why do it?

It's cruel, I know, but it's been done (on a smaller scale) for centuries.

[Zomby Woof]

25. We know mass-production factory farms aren't pretty

Whatever lessons one may draw from the activists behind the film, the fact that factory farming is not for the faint-hearted is not one of them. It's a given that most (hopefully all) of us are aware mass slaughter takes place, and it's expected people in this thread will have divergent views, whether advocating the boycotting of eggs altogether, to those advocating raising their own chickens (so as not to give the factory farms their business), to those who think factory farms have a right to their operations, but could choose a more humane means of removing unwanted male chickens. It seems that as always, profit is king, but is live grinding the cheapest means of disposal? Would it really hurt the bottom line to change the means of disposal so that live chickens are not ground to their deaths? In other words, people can disagree on the necessity or legitimacy of factory farms, and as long as they exist, we can disagree whether chickens should be killed in the egg-producing process. But I would like to think we could at least partially agree that if they are to be killed at all, that it should be done in a more humane manner.


(For the record, I am an omnivore, but consider it my responsibility to monitor the meat industry, and try to make more humane choices when data supports inhumane practices. This could lead to a decision to abandon meat altogether, but in the meantime, I will at least make adjustments that reflect my awareness, rather than casually disregard information.)

[Jennicut]

31. Totally agree...there has to be a low cost more humane alternative to killing them

[EndersDame]

38. Raise your own chickens and get your eggs that way

There are even some people in urban Austin who do this

[Jennicut]

41. I think I would do that...I watched the video...horrifying

Actually, I don't even like eggs all that much. Poor chicks.

[Canuckistanian]

42. Absolutely, I agree with you

It should be done in a more humane manner. Whoever thought up this particular process was NOT a farmer. Farmers have more respect for their animals than this.

I'm not saying the chicks wouldn't be killed anyways, just that the method lacks..... humanity.

[Peregrine Took]

26. I've heard in other places they just throw them into some fiery barrell.

People suck.

[anneboleyn]

30. My husband and I watched the documentary about pigs on HBO

and it was so vile (what was revealed, I mean). Of course the legal system and the judge in charge of the case did nothing to punish the farmers, even when multiple videos showed the pigs being absolutely brutalized, hanged to death by a chain around their necks (sorry, but this was the case), savagely beaten and thrown across the barn, etc.

[deaniac21]

32. Sounds pretty misogynistic.

[Zomby Woof]

34. How so?

Misogyny is the hatred of women.

[BeHereNow]

36. Uh, ever cross your mind....

that the poster you responded to, HAS NOT TAKEN THE TIME,
to actually WATCH the video, BEFORE responding to your thread?
As has become the custom on DU?

BLEH!
IDIOTS abound here; these days, reminding me why I don't come here any more.

BHN

[deaniac21]

40. You aren't quick to recognize a joke. I think you are smart anyway.

[deaniac21]

39. They are grinding up chicks.

[ZombieHorde]

35. I thought the same thing when I first read the subject line. nt

[aikoaiko]

45. your post reminded me of the hustler's "chick" grinder

[BeHereNow]

33. Vomit ALERT!!!

Completely made me sick to my stomach.
This type of cruelty and "disconnect" from other living beings
is exactly how we got to where we are today.
BASTE!
BHN

[PHIMG]

43. The grinding is ok to me; it's the ones that fall down that is the issue

Falling into a grinder is pretty much instant death. You are going to torn to a thousand pieces in a millisecond. So it's going to be dark and loud for a few seconds and then your entire nervous is torn to pieces in a millisecond. No nerves = no pain, no consciousness, nothing. So they probably are not lying when they say that this is the MOST HUMANE way to kill them. Now maybe you'd prefer them to go into some sort of gas chamber...well I'm sure a scientist can argue that death by asphyxiation or poison is more painful to these chicks because it is not instant and the nervous system remains in place to register pain until the brain dies. With grinding the brain and nerves are shrerred.... destroyed... without a intact nervous system you do not register pain.

As to the beak thing, it was impossible to determine whether this is neccesary. One would imagine in the cramped confines of a factory operation the stress causes the chicks to peck more than normal. It may be more human to take the beaks off with the laser then to let them attack each other, get painful infections as a result etc. But maybe they could be given an anesthetic so it is less painful? I would imagine it could be but might alter profits. Legislation might be in order to force the practice.

Now the bit where these animals fall thru and die a long painful cold death on the floor or get scolded to death -- that is horrible and is preventable with machinery that is designed properly to avoid this. So this is the part we should get really mad about. In this case the company is just being lazy and or cheap to avoid this situation. It's cheaper for the chicks to die on the floor then to revise the equipment to 100%. Unacceptable.

Bravo to the vegans who go without eggs. This is the ultimate solution to the problem of industrialized farming people refusing to give them business. Better for the atmosphere too.

[yawnmaster]

44. Not nice to watch, but I think it is very humane to the chicks.

Its instant.
They don't know that they are about to be killed.
All of a sudden - nothing.
No remembrance. No memory. Just a cessation of existence.