from shell to hell and the ethical alternative
Author:
Margaret Bryant
Publication:
SFU's The Peak (issue 11, vol 122)
Publication Date:
March 20, 2006
Like most urbanites, I’ve never known a hen personally, but when I recently listened to a farmer describe his flock as though he were describing his pet dogs and cats, it was apparent to me that there is more to chickens than meets the eye. He described the varying personalities of the 300 hens he has on his organic farm, where they roam around having dust baths, building nests, and fastidiously preening themselves. Most hens form life-long friendships and travel around the farm in flocks — diverse groups of 10 to 12 hens, some leaders, some followers, some gutsy, and some timid. All different with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, they are by no means egg-laying automatons.
My discovery of the wonderful world of chickens made my discovery of the terrible world of factory egg farming particularly disturbing. In Canada, 26 million hens haven’t been as lucky as the chickens on the organic farm mentioned above. They may be the same species with the same needs and natural behaviours, but they were hatched on a factory farm and are therefore not treated like living animals, but like egg machines.
“From shell to hell,” an animal advocate offered, commenting on the brutal lives of egg-laying hens kept on factory farms. From the moment they leave the safety of their shells, egg-laying hens, typically kept in buildings with tens of thousands of others, are subjected to one to two years of unnecessary mental and physical cruelty so that corporate farmers, much like corporate sweatshop owners, can maintain huge profit margins on the products they sell us. The exploitation of chickens in egg farming, much like the exploitation of humans in sweatshop manufacturing, subsidises these profits enormously. With no laws in Canada to protect farmed animals against cost-saving yet hideous production practices, cruel farming practices have been institutionalised and even recommended by industry “animal welfare experts.”
Life on a factory egg farm
Once baby chicks are hatched, they are dumped by the thousands onto conveyor belts where they are grouped by sex. Since the male chicks are of no use to egg farmers, the “recommended” industry practice is to load them into “macerating” machines and grind them up alive. Maceration is the recommended method of “euthanasia” for male chicks by the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council. Euthanasia alludes to a gentle or easy way to die, but maceration sounds like being tossed into a wood chipper –– hardly a gentle or easy way to die.
On many farms in Canada, when female chicks are a few weeks old, their beaks are cut or burnt off. The egg business calls this “beak-trimming,” equating the practice to nail trimming. However, unlike nails, a chicken’s beak is dense with nerves. Some hens die of infection or starvation after this painful mutilation that veterinarians have likened to cutting or burning off a human’s nose.
When the chickens are two months old, five to seven hens are put into “battery cages” together, where they spend the remainder of their lives before being sent to slaughter. Invented in the 1940s with a goal of greater automation and increased production, battery cages are wire and have sloped floors so that the hens’ eggs will roll onto a belt just outside the cage. The battery housing system, recommended by the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council, provides each hen with only six inches of space –– a typical hen’s wingspan is 26 inches. With no room to spread their wings, fully extend their necks, get away from their cage-mates, or display any natural behaviour, they are frustrated and driven insane. They peck each other until their bodies are bloody and sore. Their feet, not suitable for standing on wire mesh, become deformed and sometimes permanently wrapped around the hard wire floor of their cages. Lack of movement causes osteoporosis and their legs sometimes break and crumple beneath them. If they’re lame and can’t reach the food trough outside their cage, they will starve to death, and many do. The hens that die in the process are factored into the equation –– huge profits are still made.
Battery-caged birds are denied fresh air and sunlight and are forced to live in dark buildings that stink of manure and the rotting bodies of dead hens. Battery cages are usually stacked four to nine high so all but the chickens on the top layer are shit on from above. These chickens are so covered in feces that their feathers fall out and their skin becomes raw and infected. Unlike the small organic farmer’s chickens, these chickens never get to have a dust bath, make a nest, or scratch the dirt, let alone wander around a garden. They never get to be real chickens. Once hens are “spent” –– which is how the industry refers to them when they are too worn out to produce eggs –– they are sent to slaughter. The hens are grabbed out of their cages by their legs and wings by “catchers,” who are paid per pound of chickens they can pack onto the trucks. “Catchers” waste no time. They hurl the chickens into the crates, breaking wings and legs in the process. Their bodies, too battered and bruised to be sold as chicken wings or cutlets, are ground up to be used as fertiliser, pet food, or soup stock.
What can we do about it?
Like other exploitive industries, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are humane methods of egg farming. Corporate greed, however, demands huge profit margins that can only be satisfied by instituting efficient but cruel practices without regard for the well-being of chickens. With no legislation to stop the meat and dairy industry from doing as they please with farmed animals, it is up to us, the consumers, to speak up. If I wouldn’t myself macerate live chicks nor keep hens in wire cages with shit raining down on them while they suffer skin disease, broken bones, and insanity, why would I pay someone else to do it in on a factory farm in the Fraser Valley?
At present if you’re eating eggs or egg products from SFU cafeterias, you’re paying a corporation to inflict terrible pain and suffering on hens, which is why SFU should add eggs to its Ethical Procurement Policy. With such a policy, SFU would buy their eggs from cage-free farms where hens are treated like living animals as opposed to machines. Instead of supporting corporate farmers, who are willing to exploit animals to make a buck, SFU can do business with Certified Organic farms, where hens are not kept in battery cages covered in sores and feces. At Certified Organic farms, which are usually small and family owned, hens live in open barns where they can build nests, go outside, flap their wings, scratch the dirt, and display natural behaviour –– in short, they can be real chickens.
Despite misleading labels, such as “farm fresh,” “natural,” or “organic,” “Certified Organic” is the only trustworthy ethical certification. With this label, the eggs you consume will come from a farm that has been audited to ensure ongoing ethical practices.
Which farm would you like to do business with? Vegans would say, “Neither, animals are not ours to eat,” but the fact is, some people choose to eat animal products and prefer not to support cruel factory farming practices. A policy that states that SFU cafeterias will only purchase eggs from ethical farms would empower us to easily put our money where our values are.
Leave it to the individual and we won’t always make choices that align with our values. We’re not bad people but we might support unfair trade, sweatshops, and cruel farming practices. That’s the purpose behind SFU’s Ethical Procurement Policy, which was ratified in January 2006. With this policy, we are better enabled to boycott companies that profit by exploiting humans and animals. Individuals may rationalise unethical choices — buying the factory farmed egg doesn’t make me as bad as the person who owns the farm, does it? Maybe it does, but in the moment, it’s fairly easy for most of us to buy what we want and conveniently forget about it. Blame it on our id, our alienation, our selfishness, convenience, cost, preference, or lack of knowledge, sometimes we don’t do what we know that we “should” do. So when a policy like the Ethical Procurement Policy helps us do what we “should” do, and align our actions with our values, I say bring it on! And don’t stop at sweatshirts and coffee. Most people are not radically ethical (in their actions at least), and won’t go as far as to remove all animal products from their diets, which is likely the most humane choice. That said, I think most people would feel pretty good about SFU taking a stand against some of the most exploitive practices in the factory farming industry. By adding eggs to the Ethical Procurement Policy, SFU can make a profound difference in the lives of chickens, as well as make a profound statement to the exploitive factory farming industry. This is clearly aligned with SFU’s mandate, to build a “robust and ethical society,” and it empowers people to choose not to support cruelty. Now that we can buy sweatshop-free SFU gear and fair trade coffee, let’s get some cruelty-free food choices in our cafeterias.
If you don’t want to support the cruelty inherent in factory egg farming, let the SFU administration and the Ethical Procurement Committee know that you support adding eggs to the Ethical Procurement Policy by signing the petition in the SFPIRG office. Also, if you eat eggs at home, make sure you buy Certified Organic.
Margaret Bryant is one of the organisers of “ChickenOUT” at SFU, a campaign aimed at having eggs added to SFU’s Ethical Procurement Policy.
For more information on battery hens, organic eggs and what you can do to help, visit www.chickenout.ca.
