Treehugger - Latest Comments in Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Marcia Mueller — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:33:36 -0000

Silly response. Plants and trees do not have central nervous systems that can feel pain.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Marcia Mueller — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:31:17 -0000

People don't need to eat animals to stay alive and healthy. That option needs to be considered.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Marcia Mueller — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:28:35 -0000

There are too many people. Animals should not have to suffer because human beings will not stop their overbreeding.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Marcia Mueller — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:26:44 -0000

If there weren't too many children being produced by irresponsible human beings, they would not be starving. I'm on the side of the chicks. They should not have to suffer for our folly.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

YoonYoungJo — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 00:18:54 -0000

I wish there was a better, more humane way but these "tree huggers" never consider the cost for what they are demanding. 150k male chicks die a year but if the process wasn't the way it was, 100m more human babies would die from starvation.
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It's easy to be self righteous while being able to pay $1 per egg or pay $20 per pound for chicken meat. And being rich enough that you can investigate these things without worry of money or finances. And NO Vegans, theoretically humans need meat. Our brains would never have developed to where it is now if we hadn't consumed meat. In fact I would even argue if we stopped consuming all meat products today, 500-1000 years from now human brains will become smaller and dumber.
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When the day comes where we can create synthetic meat products I will be very happy. If there was a option to have meat without this type of treatment and it was still affordable of course I would choose it.
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But until that day comes. I will always choose human children and babies over baby chicks.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Robert Zeurunkl — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 19:19:02 -0000

The current process of maceration is quick and relatively painless. On the other hand, can you imagine the deplorable, cruel, inhumane conditions that would exist of the hundreds of millions of these that are produced every year actually lived?

A fraction of a second of confusion, and they are gone. I wish I could be so lucky as to go out that quickly.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Michelle Wetherbee — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:56:11 -0000

Humans are not designed to be either carnivorous or vegetation. Instead we were originally opportunistic omnivores meaning that we had to adapt to both plants and meat due to our not being very good at either grazing nor hunting. A predator has eyes positioned at the front of it's head whilst prey on the sides to allow for a wider range of vision, notice humans have the predator eye position yet lack any formidable weapons. At the same time we have dental structure similar to both lions and deer the front teeth of both human and deer are remarkably similar for the slicing of less tough objects such as apples and lettuce while the canines aid in the ripping and tearing of meat. Molars in a human is remarkably similar to both deer and lion because they serve the same purpose: the mechanical digestion of both meat and plants. Homo sapiens have evolved to the point where the appendix which is the human equivalent to an animals cecum which is used for the digestion of roughages (leaves, plants, etc.) no longer serves a purpose and has become a vestigial structure. Therefore human is neither intended to eat exclusively meat nor plants but rather a balanced variety of both although modern technological advances in the medical industry allows for modern day humans to chose between plants or animals. No one should force their dietary beliefs on anyone. Although if the issue with egg consumption is the horrendous conditions at hatcheries and industrial farms why not raise your own chickens? They really don't need much some space, a place to sleep, food, water, and a tray of sand or dirt so they can dust.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Michelle Wetherbee — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:32:13 -0000

The amount of money made in an industry revolving around animal products is reflected in the condition of the animal. A stressed cow produced high amounts of cortisol which can effectively toughen meat and lower consumer demand for that brand, which in turn negatively affects the income of the farm where the animal was raised. Animals must be well fed in order to ensure maximum meat, egg, or milk production. An underfed chicken will lay undersized eggs or skip days of laying. An underfed beef cow will not have any fat to serve as marbling which contributes to tender meat, an underfed milk cow will have significantly reduced milk production butterfat percentages and will even produce off-flavor milk. Animals must always be healthy, as what they are producing is going toward human consumption, who would want to eat meat that had bronchitis, pneumonia, scrapie, or "stargazers" syndrome? or drink milk from a cow with mastitis? Therfore it is in a farmer's best interests to keep their animals safe, healthy, well fed and stress free, as doing so will ensure the most profit with less unintentional deaths such as what occurs when cattle are forced through a drencher ; Many drown. What is good for the animal is good for the industry.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Sarah Elliott — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:38:27 -0000

I'm glad you put this up. I worked at another well-known hatchery in northern iowa and there, experienced some of the most unprofessional and unlawful procedures i could imagine! the one and only day, i, as a certifed vet tech, worked/trained there, this is what i witnessed: 1)there were no MS sheets indicating the kinds of chemicals used on the premises...when i asked of their whereabouts, the owner said, 'well, i guess i'll have to get some up'...2) the chemicals they used to clean the floor were so potent, my eyes burned just walking through the hallways, where they had trays of chicks sitting for delivery by UPS, later in the day. if my eyes were burning just walking through, imagine how their bodies were impacted by the fumes for the hours they sat there! eat them after that? i don't think so! 3) i learned how to give injections of antibiotics to the chicks...told to throw the injured or sick into a bucket set at my feet...they'd be disposed of later. we were given no headgear to keep us from breathing in the chick fluff or eye gear to keep the fluff out of our eyes. after one day of this, i walked out of there with puffy, sore and mattery eyes due to what i'd endured. 4)the chicks that'd been injured and were in buckets, were thrown en masse into a big black 30gallon garbage receptacle, then were transported to another room where a guy they'd nicknamed "the grim reaper" poured another big garbage container, full of already dead and dying chicks on top of this new batch, thus, using the weight of their little bodies upon one another to suffocate one another. when they told me this, the look on my face must've let them know i was NOT on board with this particular practice at all!
when i arrived home that evening, i called around to other hatcheries in the area, to ask them if they'd share with me their practices of male chick execution...two hung up on me and one wouldn't comment. a fourth said that suffocation is the most cost effective, but not the most humane. i agreed. i then called the USFDA and asked about their "standards" and what could be done. I was told that as a vettech, if i continued to work for them and didn't report them, i could lose my licensure if they were busted for unlawful practices. one woman told me i could make more money flipping burgers at mcdonalds and be safer! they took the name and the address of this place, but it never closed down. i never went back. it seemed that industry didn't give a rats ass about the male chicks. it makes no sense to me that families who are starving to death cannot be given those male chicks, a few at a time so they won't kill each other (becuz i know they are aggressive as they mature) just for the feeding of the starving human family! my god...chickens don' t eat much...and they are a great source of protein.
if we all went vegan, there'd not be enough to feed all of us. there's only so much land for growing veggies...i don't think it's sustainable.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

derealization — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:24:25 -0000

I don't want respect in my egg carton or meat shelf, I want affordable, healthy, and consumable food. If this is what it takes to feed seven billion people at reasonable prices, then so be it. I do not have the time to carefully kill my own food, or pay someone to sing songs to my chickens before they're slaughtered.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Mateusz82 — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 01:21:10 -0000

It's not hypocrisy to try your best to reduce suffering. The clothes you wear are almost certainly from sweatshops (unless you hand sew them yourself), however you can wear clothes and still be against slavery. Just because wearing clothes produced from human exploitation is unavoidable doesn't mean that you should just conclude that you're going to partake of human exploitation no matter what, so you might as well buy a 12-year-old Cambodian child slave, chain him up and force him to do housework or get whipped.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Mateusz82 — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 01:16:25 -0000

"Animal matter is a necessary part of a person's diet. "

That is simply not true. It's possible to live free from all animal exploitation. Not just possible, but healthier.

Also, there is no such thing as humane slaughter. Any way humans kill other animals is cruel violence.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Mateusz82 — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:38:13 -0000

Sentience makes a difference? How do you mean? All animals are sentient (they can think and feel. Yes, you can try to raise the question of jellyfish, but that's another issue). And what animals ever sacrifice themselves to us? You make it sound like they are willing their bodies to culinary arts before committing suicide. Plain and simple, they are being killed, cruelly, by callous humans.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Phyllis — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 02:24:24 -0000

While I was watching the video, I was horrified and felt helpless for the poor chics!! I am also angry at who's ever in charge of keeping this information from the public. It was horrifying for me to watch!!! The workers seemed to have built up an immunity and inhumane tolerance to grinding and killing those poor little chics. I am not a vegan or a vegetarian but I would like to be educated so I can make healthy and responsible choices. I think Mercy for Animals came up with a great idea to put labels on egg containers etc. I also think it would be very helpful to let the consumer know which hatcheries they came from. I usually stay away from major grocery chains and shop at Whole Foods where I know most of what I am eating is safe. I would much rather eat meat from an animal that lived free range and stress free then from an animal that was tortured and died a horrible death!

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

homesteader — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:49:05 -0000

It is just cruel. We don't eat a lot of meat, but what we do eat is either raised by us or beef we get from a friend who raises cows in a healthy and kind manner, and get other meat from friends who hunt. Our cockerls don't live very long,because we eat most of them, but while they are alive they are well cared for, live outside, get fresh air and sunshine, can act and live like normals birds, and they are killed quickly and humanely. I think all animals deserve a good life, to be well cared for and healthy, even if they are destined to be food,

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Jason V — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:33:16 -0000

"It's in a farmer's best interests to keep their animals safe, healthy, well fed and stress free as feasible."

I disagree. I hear this quite often, and it's simply not true. Perhaps a little more on small farms, but the majority of meat comes from large scale operations. On that scale, 'healthy, well fed and stress free' do not enter into making money as fast and as much as possible. The only important thing is that there is enough money being made, not whether the animals are healthy, well fed nor stress free.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

I Carter — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:58:03 -0000

Perhaps the question here should be "How much am I willing to pay to feel better about eating animals?" Industrial agriculture's economies of scale give Americans a cheap and plentiful supply of (low quality) food. Are you willing to devote 20% of your budget to food?

One thing I don't think people realize: It's in a farmer's best interests to keep their animals safe, healthy, well fed and stress free as feasible. Let me explain:

Farmers operate at VERY thin margins and always have a bigger competitor making more at a lower cost around the corner. Every overstressed animal that dies or gets sick is a net profit loss. The health and welfare of every animal is a concern because healthy animals are ready faster and put on weight more efficiently. Every animal that dies is a few hundred down the drain. Every dose of medicine, every vet bill adds up fast. Sick animals lose weeks at a time of feed efficiency, which is bad news when over half the cost of producing a pig is its feed. Every calorie an animal burns walking about is more feed, which means more farmland, more stress on the environment. Free range animals are more exposed to wild animals, disease, parasites, ect. More disease, more inputs, more cost, more losses. And finally, stressed animals make low quality meat. It's in the farmer's best interest to take care of their animals to the best of their ability.

Sure, some CAFO practices look pretty cruel. Take farrowing crates. (picture if you're unaware of the practice http://www.ukagriculture.co... Farrowing crates lock mothers down and give space to their babies to help keep them from rolling over on their offspring and crushing them to death. Some pig breeds have good mothering instincts bred in, some will plop down on half their young and suffocate them. Which is more inhumane, a cage or a mother suffocating half her offspring? Every pig matters to the bottom line, so you get crates.

You might think that farmers could raise their selling price to offset these costs, but this is not how commodity agriculture works. As a farmer, you take whatever price the market is offering you instead of setting your own. If what it cost you to produce a pig is more than what you can sell it for, you take a loss that year and hope you've saved enough from previous years, or hope you'll make it up next year. If you don't, you stand a high chance of losing your business and being shunned by all your farmer friends as someone who couldn't cut it.

I challenge some of you to take on a very high risk, low margin business and see where you don't try to lower your bottom line and make compromises to feed your family.

You just might end up grinding inefficient male chickens.

If that thought doesn't appeal to you, reduce your meat consumption, opt out of industrial/commercial agriculture and/or go for local/home grown.

If you want to know more about how your meat is produced, you have a couple options. Option one is visit a farmer's market, support your local farmers, learn about them and their practices. The opacity of a modern grocery store will not allow this. The added income of direct sales will help them differentiate their products and meet your "cruelty free" demands. (Really though, as I explained, it's usually against the interest of the farmer to harm/abuse their animals.)

Your second option is raise your own. Buy a couple chicks, feed them out, keep them as pets that give you a present every morning. Raise some goats. Oh, and slaughter them yourself too. Learn about their life cycles and psychology.

And a third: hunt some overpopulated game, like deer. If you have qualms about killing the animal yourself, I really don't feel you should be eating it. Added bonuses: you reduce the stress on the rest of the forest animals reliant on mast crops, you know your meat wasn't factory farmed and lived a free range life, it's leaner and healthier, fairly cheap (a gun, ammo, hunter safety class, and meat processing/freezer costs).

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Jason the Vegan — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:41:41 -0000

Mike,

Well, I typed out a rather long and detailed response several days ago, but unfortunately it did not get through.

I focused on detailing why 'natural' and 'food chain' are human constructs used to view the world and nothing more. They are not rules used to justify our actions. In fact they should not be used.

Second is that there are plenty of appropriate non-animal sources which have protein (there really is no plant source which does not have protein, the only issue is the quantity and ratio of amino acids, which makes up protein) and animal flesh is not necessarily better than any plant source. For the most part, I think animals are just easier. More care and time are required with plants.

I can't come up with a single reason why animals should be used, or as you said, a 'good idea.' Why do you say that?

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Bobo — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:30:46 -0000

"Have you ever seen a cat play with a small animal? Ever seen a bird being gutted by a hawk while it was still alive?

Nature is far more cruel than this. Get over it there are bigger battles to fight."

How many cats kill small animals... every day? No comparison here for the numbers. Buy local, cage-free, organic, then enjoy your meal, or even better don't eat animals at all. That's all that is being asked. How hard is that?

As for bigger battles to fight, who says you can only fight one at a time? I care about the whole picture, like most people who give a damn, and I do what I can every day to make a difference. Shame people like me are the minority. No wonder the world keeps going to a path of self destruction with ignorance reigning supreme.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Mike — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:36:42 -0000

Jason: Thank you for the civil response, and the answer I was looking for. In fact, it's something I'm a bit torn over myself as I do believe sentience makes a difference. However, there is a naturally occurring food chain that most people do live by. I don't see animals as a commodity, and I don't think they should be. They should simply be the way most people get a good source of protein as part of a naturally occurring food chain. Now I myself do think we as a species are eating too much meat, and we should show respect and kindness to the animals sacrificing themselves to feed us, and reducing our meat consumption would be beneficial all around, but cutting it out completely? As of right now, I don't think that's a good idea.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Jason the vegan — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:37:41 -0000

Mike,

My concern is sentience, not necessarily whether something is alive.

While many people seem to focus on the animal welfare aspect (let's make sure they die nicely), I'm interested in avoiding the mentality of viewing animals as commodities or products. For those people who do view them as such, I submit that it is no different that viewing another human race or gender as a commodity, a product, or an inferior class/object.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Mike — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:13:09 -0000

Vegetarians/Vegans: I completely agree with many of your concerns regarding animal welfare. The fact of the matter is, in order for you to eat, something has to die. Flowers, plants, trees. Those are all living things too. Just be careful how you make your arguments.

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Beth Terry — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:12:57 -0000

Buying "certified humane" eggs is not a guarantee that the chickens that laid them came from humane hatcheries. I did some research this weekend and learned that most egg producers, certified humane or not, buy their chicks from hatcheries that may engage in these practices. But there is something we can do! The executive director of Humane Farm Animal Care suggests writing to the Secretary of Agriculture and asking for the USDA to invest in research on sexing embryos.

I wrote a detailed post this morning about my discussion with her and what we can do here:

http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/2009/09/male-chicks-macerated-for-our-eggs-but.html

Beth

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Jason — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:04:09 -0000

Aleks Clark:

It is about profits. You can't compare large factories to small ones, or large companies to small ones. All things being equal, the larger companies will make less per product than a small one, that's simple economics. It's why large companies so easily out compete small ones. Large companies can sell at a lower margin to, yet make so much more money.

It's not about 'coddling' your food, it's about not viewing other creatures as commodities, as products, not unlike so many people have in the past as well as currently view other people as commodities or as products.

Further on the topic of males to female chickens, what is that ratio? 50% each, 25% each? Either way, that's a lot of male chickens, so I don't even know what you're referring to by "lower per-egg death rate than farms do."

Re: Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks

Tom — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:05:42 -0000

Thanks Treehugger, for posting this story. It's horrible. It's the truth. Our entire culture now is based on the giant industrial animal processing plants, which incorporate incredible suffering both for the animals, but also for the people that work in the plants. Regardless of whether we stop eating eggs, chickens and dairy products, we need this massive cruelty to stop. The question is, how?