Ye-HaBattery Caged Chickin Pickin'
Rows of Hens in Battery Cages
(Photo from FarmSanctuary.org)
Some people care so much about how we treat chickens that in California the voters turned down Proposition 8 (Prop 8) that would have let gay people marry but passed Proposition 2 to give laying hens more room. That's right, Californians care more about rights of chickens than gay people. At least the chickens will have better lives.
So, how much room do they have now, how much will they get under California’s Prop 2—the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (primarily sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States), and how much more room, if any, do they get if they are “organic,” "cage-free" or "free range?"
Before I answer these questions, we should understand two things: there are "meat" chickens and there are egg laying chickens. They have been bred differently. Meat chickens have been bred to develop large breasts (I hear the kids snickering in the back row). Egg laying chickens, or hens, since only the females lay eggs, have been bred to lay both a higher quantity of eggs and larger eggs.
This post will address the egg laying hens. I’ll leave the meat chickens for another post.
In the egg industry, the males, or roosters, are killed shortly after hatching. The males are of no use to the egg industry because they don't lay eggs and aren't bred to grow as large or as rapidly as chickens used in the meat industry. Common methods of killing male chicks include suffocation, gassing and grinding. Hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed at hatcheries each year in the United States.[1]
Hens in a Battery Cage
(Photo from HSUS.)
Production or “factory farmed” hens are commonly kept in "battery cages." The name supposedly started being used in 1931 when Milton Arndt published a book called Battery Brooding in which he claimed that his cage flock was healthier and had higher egg production than his conventional flock. [2] Brooding is the act of sitting on eggs to incubate them. I couldn't find the origin of the use of battery, perhaps because there was a battery of hens?
Battery hens do not have enough room to spread their wings, much less engage in their natural behaviors of standing, walking, flapping their wings, perching, dust bathing, or nesting.
Battery hens often lose a large proportion of their feathers due to damage from the sides of the cage and pecking from other hens.
Several studies have indicated that a combination of high calcium demand for egg production and a lack of exercise lead to a painful condition known as cage layer osteoporosis, which increases the chances that hens in battery cages will break their bones. [3].
Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria have banned battery cages. The entire European Union is phasing out conventional cages by 2012.
Under California law, which will take effect on January 1, 2015, laying hens (and calves and pigs) must be given enough space to allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs. [4]
Before I give you the labeling definitions to help you make you future choices, let me address beak cutting, also called de-beaking and beak trimming. Beak cutting is performed to eliminate pecking and to reduce cannibalism in stressed-out bird populations. The beak contains sensitive nerves that sense pain and noxious stimuli. Chicks have their beaks cut or melted off, without anesthetic. It has been proposed that egg producers can eliminate the need for beak cutting through making changes in their environment. Beak cutting is not necessary on farm raised hens. De-beaking will become illegal in the UK in January 2011.
So how much more room do they get if they are “Cage free?” Both “Cage-free” and “Certified Humane” hens are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, but are not required to have access to the outdoors. They can engage in many of their natural behaviors such as walking, nesting and spreading their wings. “Cage-free” allows both beak cutting and forced molting through starvation. There is no third-party auditing. “Certified Humane” has additional requirements for stocking density and number of perches and nesting boxes. Forced molting through starvation is prohibited, but beak cutting is allowed. Compliance is verified through third-party auditing. “Certified Humane” is a program of Humane Farm Animal Care.
The USDA has defined “Free-Roaming," also known as "free-range" for some poultry products, but there are no standards in "free-roaming" egg production. This essentially means the hens are cage-free.
“Certified Organic” hens are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, and are required to have outdoor access, but the amount, duration, and quality of outdoor access is undefined. They are fed an organic, all-vegetarian diet free of antibiotics and pesticides, as required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program. Beak cutting and forced molting through starvation are permitted. Compliance is verified through third-party auditing.
“Animal Welfare Approved” is the highest animal welfare standards of any third-party auditing program. The birds are cage-free and continuous outdoor perching access is required. They must be able to perform natural behaviors such as nesting, perching and dust bathing. There are requirements for stocking density, perching, space and nesting boxes. Birds must be allowed to molt naturally. Beak cutting is prohibited. Animal Welfare Approved is a program of the Animal Welfare Institute.
"United Egg Producers Certified" means only that they have not been forced molted through starvation. All other factory farm practices are allowed.
The following labels do not effect the living conditions of the hens: "Vegetarian-Fed," "Natural," or "Omega-3 Enriched."
Because battery caged hens have received so much public attention, egg producers are labeling their cartons and many other food suppliers, such as catering services and restaurants, publicly state that they do not serve caged hen eggs.
What can you do? Keep informed and vote with your wallet. If at all possible, buy your eggs from local farmer’s markets or from local non-factory farm producers with whom you can talk about their practices. Avoid eating eggs in restaurants unless they purchase from farms where chickens are treated humanely. Eschew fast food restaurants.
There are almost two million farms in the USA. About 80% of those are small farms, and a large percentage are family owned. More and more of these farmers are now selling their products directly to the public. They do this via CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs, Farmers' Markets, Food Coops, u-picks, farm stands, and other direct marketing channels.
Google for Farmer's Markets and farms in your area. Also try the key words CSA, pastured, and "share program." www.buylocalfood.com helps you locate these and has a host of other helpful resources as well.
This is what they want you to think; they even draw it on the carton:
This is what they don't want you to know:
(Photos from Humane Education Network.)
Watch this terrific, eye opening undercover video recorded in early 2008 at Gemperle Enterprises in Merced County, California, a supplier to NuCal Foods Inc. - the largest distributor of shell eggs in the Western US:
Watch this three part series of filming at Wegman's Egg Farm in Rochester, NY:
DATA REFERENCES:
1. Humane Society of the United States
2. Arndt, Milton (1931). Battery Brooding (2nd ed.). Orange Judd Publishing. pp. 308–312.
3. Scientific Veterinary Committee of the European Commission (1996). "Report on the Welfare of Layer Hens".
4. Text of Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act
Evil Pleasures
Random Musings on Life, Love and Everything
Let's Get Down To Business
Oh, and don't eat at KFC. They boil their chickens alive.
Culinary Hatchet
Did You Know This?
You see that we do our own research and reference creditable sources for our facts on this Blog.
PETA (I will definitely write a post about those people one day) made the accusation about KFC.
KFC, in fact, buys their broilers (meat chickens) from factory farms. They don't slaughter the chickens themselves. PETA singled them out because of the volume of chicken that KFC buys from these farms.
PETA says that in a slaughterhouse in West Virginia workers were documented engaging in acts of cruelty including, tearing the heads off live birds, spitting tobacco into their eyes, spray-painting their faces, and violently stomping on them and that in another slaughterhouse in Missouri documented that live birds were being thrown by workers, scalded alive, and injured by broken transport cages. [1]
Chickens are accidentally scalded alive when the throat cutting machine misses one before they are boiled to remove their feathers. It is not intentional, but that doesn't make it OK either.
I have watched the videos on PETA's website. They're pretty shocking.
PETA is targeting McDonald's now as well.
I will address this issue further in the upcoming Blog on meat chickens.
DATA REFERENCES:
1. PETA's web site.