Fep's Article 'Chickens Raised For' Meat

According to Farm Sanctuary, the chickens, and the large barns they are raised in, are covered in feces. Even under these conditions, Perdue still believes they are healthy enough for human consumption (“Factory Farming”). Over the years, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has travelled around the country to protest with other disgruntled Perdue employees. During one of their protests at the Perdue slaughterhouse in Salisbury, Maryland, Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA president, came across chickens dying from heatstroke in exposed crates. After further investigation, she found that if the chickens can’t handle the unethical conditions created by the employees and are dead, dying, diseased, or disabled, they will be thrown like lifeless beings into bins labelled “4D” (“Frank Perdue’s Legacy”). The awful fact of the matter is that most of the chickens are disabled as the majority of them suffer from broken bones. This occurs because of the rapid breast growth the company sets as standards for production. The number of hormones and antibiotics that the company infuses into the chickens makes them grow at abnormally fast rates. The normal chicken’s life span is about ten to fifteen years (“Frank Perdue’s Legacy”). Perdue typically slaughters its chickens once they reach the age of two months. At this age, their breast size is approximately the same as a ten-year-old

Factory farming is a practice that is used to keep up and sustain the supply and demand for different types of animal meat. A poultry factory farm that will be discussed is Perdue Farms. Perdue Farms is established and operated in the United States and has a processing facility where they raise and slaughter chickens. Perdue Farms is meeting the needs of the consumers by supplying and mass producing poultry for consumption. One may view this of being a success by having a well-established, profitable business that is fulfilling their responsibilities to the consumers. While that may be true, they are not fulfilling their ethical responsibility to the animals. These animals are in close quarters where they are nested in urine and feces. There can even be instances where they will be sitting on or near deceased chickens until their cage is chosen for slaughter. Since these animals are massively produced the use of hormones and antibiotics are used to sustain life and growth. On top of the poor, dirty living conditions these animals are also giving additives that will eventually make it to the consumer. The process has an impact on those employed by the corporation and those who purchase products from them.

Our nation’s industrial farming has become more than just feeding people; it has become a way for the food industry to make more money as human population continues to grow. Jonathan Safran Foer in his book Eating Animals, illustrates the effects factory farming has had on animals meant for human consumption. Furthermore, Foer asks many questions to the reader on what will it take for us to change our ways before we say enough is enough. The questions individuals need to be asking themselves are: how do we deal with the problem of factory farming, and what can people do to help solve these issues? Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, also illustrates the animal abuse that goes unseen within the food industry as well as Bernard Rollin and Robert Desch in their article “Farm Factories”, both demonstrate what is wrong today with factory farming. Foer gives such examples of employees who work in slaughterhouses giving accounts of what goes on in the kill floors, and stories of employees who have witnessed thousands and thousands of cows going through the slaughter process alive (Animals 231). Namit Arora in the article “On Eating Animals”, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. The food industry has transformed not only how people eat, but also the negative effects our climate endures as a result of factory farming as illustrated by Anna Lappe in “The Climate Crisis at the End

Do animals have the right to a certain quality of life? How would your views change if our cooks got treated the same way cattle and poultry do? How would you feel about them being beaten and brought to their knees just to be detained to know how to cook todays specials? You might think that the food industry has no issues and no faults behind their tasty food, but when you open up the meat curtain, there is a different kind of world out there that is cruel and inhumane. In Robert Kenner’s 2008 film, Food, Inc., He shows the conditions that cows, chickens, and pigs have to live in. The dark and closeted homes in which the animals are closely compacted together and eating, sleeping, and walking in their own manure. As a person who would consider themselves an animal rights activist, most people would agree that the food industry treats their animals like products instead of living things.

“For most humans, especially for those in modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form or contact with non-human animals is at meal time: we eat them. This simple fact is the key to what each one of us can do about changing these attitudes. The use and abuse of animals raised for food far exceeds, in sheer numbers of animals affected, any other kind of mistreatment” (Coats). The most effective method to stop this cruelty is to learn about where the meat comes from, by supporting the organic and family farms which will ultimately lead to the reducing the amount of animals that have to suffer (PETA). More than 95 percent of animal abuse in America occurs in the meat packing industry (Harper & Low). Animals suffer an unimaginable amount, they are raised to be killed, then bought and then consumed. In order to help fight back against the abuse, there needs to be a cut back on the amount of meat or poultry that is consumed. Seriously consider the option of becoming a vegetarian; by not eating meat, you completely stop supporting animal

The living conditions of chickens are dreadful and appalling. What came first the chicken or the egg? Chicken farming is found particularly in the Southeast margin of the United States (“Factory Farm Map”). It is explained that, “chickens and hogs on factory farms have no access to the outdoors, fresh air or natural light” (“Factory Farms Map”). This exemplifies one situation of how chickens are poorly treated in the factory farms. In addition, even before the chickens are born, they are treated horribly. More than 125,000 to one million hens can be living in the same factory together (Hobson). Along with crowded living spaces, these animals suffer being “docked,” which means they are declawed and stripped of all teeth (Hobson). This shows how bad the conditions

Following the recent incident in a Melbourne suburb during which hundreds of chickens were illegally released from cages on a truck, writer Jo Smith contended in his opinion piece ‘Chickens Range Free’ issued on January 2009 that our actions towards farm chickens are both inhumane and brutal. The piece draws attention to us as the human species, the need to raise awareness, the desire to stop such inhumane treatment and to enact action by supporting the activists who freed the chickens in an attempt to encourage readers to feel a sense of empathy as an act which disadvantages both themselves and others. The opinion piece was also accompanied by a photograph, was published on a website and on the Opinion

It’s problematic that we don’t question the food we eat whether it be from McDonalds or a fancy upscale restaurant. We need to be more aware of what is going on around us especially when the food we eat is causing an array of health issues for us. The unsanitary conditions found within the factory farm industry contributes to the pathogens found in the meat we eat. As the saying goes you get what you pay for. Factory farming is based upon producing large quantities of meat at a very low cost. This driving force behind the system is not worth getting food poising or something detrimental. In the chapter “Influence / Speechlessness” the habitats of the chickens are displayed “jamming deformed, drugged,

In his 2009 article “Eating Meat,” Jonathan Safran Foer uncovers the cruel and gruesome truth about factory farms and how they violate animal rights. Foer believes changing food habits prevents the sufferings of animals. He explains that factory farmed animals are suffering due to their inhuman living conditions and style of killing. Foer explains that chickens are cramped with twisted legs and cows are skinned or dismembered while still conscious. In addition, Foer clarifies that after making an animal suffer and go through torture, it is just plain wrong to eat it. Foer would often acknowledge his grandmother’s story, emphasizing her famine during the War and how she had refused a piece of meat offered to her. Even though she had been starving for days, she refused the piece of meat.

“This is horrible! I can’t even watch this!” Those were my immediate thoughts the first time my eyes were opened to the inhumane animal cruelty on factory farms. Factory farming enables mass production to supply the demands of today’s society but also enables the cruel treatment of animals. We need to end the cruelty and abuse that these animals have to endure at the factory farms because it causes loss to the business, reduces the quality of the product produced, and endangers the health of those who buy the product. We can promote humane treatment of factory farm animals by prevention through education, by enforcing humane laws by being an example of humane animal treatment, and by donating and/or

The most arguably abused animal in the world is the chicken. The common commercial way of how chickens are factory farmed is inhumane to the animals, because of the way the chickens are treated. Chickens are given insufficient living conditions in areas that make it impossible for them to live enjoyable lives, as well as the amount of birds contained in the buildings. The sake of the fowls' health and growth is cruelty altered, as chemicals and mutations are done to the them throughout their time on the farms. A chicken that is hatched for the use of a factory farm will not have the same basic quality of life of a chicken that is turned out often; the only thing factory farmed chickens get in life is depression and frustration.

There is a large problem of animal cruelty linked to the food industry in the United States. Countless slaughterhouses, chicken farms, and other meat producers have been found guilty of harming animals and killing them inhumanely. This is something that clearly needs to change.

Poultry is by far the number one meat consumed in America; it is versatile, relatively inexpensive compared to other meats, and most importantly it can be found in every grocery store through out the United States. All of those factors are made possible because of factory farming. Factory farming is the reason why consumers are able to purchase low-priced poultry in their local supermarket and also the reason why chickens and other animals are being seen as profit rather than living, breathing beings. So what is exactly is factory farming? According to Ben Macintyre, a writer and columnist of The Times, a British newspaper and a former chicken farm worker, he summed up the goal of any factory farm “... to produce the maximum quantity of

Close your eyes and step into the world of an individual. You are born into a world where nights and days are never constant (attention getter). You are fed three to five times a day, but no one is there to nurture you. Not even the numerous others crammed into your living space. You grow frantic, scared, and sickly. Now open your eyes, to reality. What I have just described is one of America’s worst ghettos. You know this individual who is trapped in this environment. He is your breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is the meat you eat . Today’s farms not only abuse their animals they also produce harmful diseases and environmental hazards that affect each and every one of us, regardless of whether you consume animal products or not. The U.S. government should ban factory farms and require the meat industry to raise animals in their natural environments (preview of points and statement of purpose).

Animals raised in factory farms, for the pleasure of Americans, suffer a great majority of their lives. For 250 million consumers, approximately 6.2 billion chickens will survive in unthinkable conditions. Because factory farms treat chickens (and other farm animals) like moral inferiors, American families should boycott major chicken production agencies and opt for a natural and humane alternative. They don't, however, due to the small impact they think they may have on the industry, or simply because man thinks we are superior to other species, morally speaking. Alastair Norcross (in Puppies, pigs and People) uses Fred and factory farmed meat, the rationality gambit, and the problem of marginal cases to prove that, no, farm animals are not morally inferior to you or I, and yes, boycotting these large industries will make a difference.