Lots of people eat chicken, without a thought about what this choice means for the animals. Chickens are the ultimate factory farmed animals.
Photos from Victoria by Liberation Photography.
The production line starts with fluffy chicks like the one in the picture. They are crowded into huge sheds with thousands or even tens of thousands of other birds. The shed floor looks like a white carpet as the chickens grow because they are so crowded.
Thousands of birds sit on the same litter for 6 weeks, so their droppings pile up and the air is fouled with dust, ammonia and bacteria.
Chickens are bred to grow really fast. They are only 6 week old babies when they are slaughtered. This fast growth rate can lead to painful bone deformities. Some birds are so crippled that they can't reach food and water and have to be killed. Collecting dead and dying birds is a daily chore in the chicken shed. Corpses that aren't picked up quickly enough may be eaten by others, as in the photo.
Photos from Victoria by Liberation Photography.
When chickens are only 6 weeks old, catchers go through the shed and catch several chickens at a time by one leg. There are thousands of chickens to catch, so speed rather than care is the most important factor. Birds are handled roughly and many end up with broken bones or dislocated hip joints, which is extremely painful.
The chickens are stuffed into plastic crates for transport to the slaughterhouse. They are transported in all weather, even if it is cold and wet or 40 degrees. Some chickens die in the crates.
Left: catchers at work (PETA). Right: crated chickens on the way to slaughter (Farm Sanctuary).
At the slaughterhouse, chickens are pulled from the crates and hung up by the feet on the killing chain. Being hung upside down is terrifying for chickens, and excruciatingly painful for those birds that already have crippled legs. The photo on the left shows how dirty birds are from sitting on their own manure.
The heads of the chickens are supposed to pass through an electrified water bath to stun them before their throat is cut by an automatic knife. This stunning and killing process is not always efficient and some birds suffer more pain and distress.
Left: chickens hung on the killing line (PETA). Right: chickens after their throat has been cut (Farm Santuary).
What can you do? Choose cruelty-free food instead of chicken. It is consumer dollars that keep this cruel industry going.
For example, try a not-chicken stir-fry.
Fast facts
- Over 470 million chickens were killed in 2007-8 in the mainland states alone (exc NT and Tasmania). That means that over 1.28 million birds are killed every single day of the year, or around 15 birds every single second.
- A typical farm has 100,000 – 150,000 chickens at any one time, with around 40,000 birds in each shed.
- 40kg of birds can be kept on each square metre, so by the time they reach slaughterweight, each chicken has less space than a normal page.
- 4% of birds die or are killed in sheds before they reach 6 weeks of age, which in Australia means that around 19 million chickens each year suffer and die in their first 6 weeks of life.
- At 6 weeks of age, when they are still babies, only a small percentage can walk normally.
- 3% of live birds (14 million a year) arriving at the slaughterhouse have broken bones and 4.5% (21 million a year) have dislocated hips. These injured birds suffer extreme pain before being killed.
Have a look at these photogalleries:
For more information, download:
- Leaflet: The cost of cheap meat is mass chicken suffering
- Factsheet: The real price of cheap chicken is pain (6 pages with references)
- Leaflet on the connection between factory farming and bird flu: The real cost of cheap chicken
- Beyond Chicken
