Chickens

The Department of Primary Industries in Victoria seized 700,000 chickens from Tip Top Poultry, a major chicken producer. The birds were not being fed because of financial difficulties, and some had to be euthanased due to poor health (The Age, 6/2/12).

Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg - chickens suffer all the time in an industry that kills half a billion birds a year in Australia. The industry admits that 4% die in sheds before they reach the slaughter age of 6 weeks. That makes 20 million a year that die in sheds, or  55,000 every single day.

The aim of the industry is to fatten birds as quickly as possible. The unnaturally fast growth rate puts enormous strain on young bones and organs such as the heart. Some of these young birds die of heart attacks. Most have some walking abnormality due to bone or joint problems; in the worst case scenario they are completely crippled and can't reach food and water.

Slaughterhouses

The Hawkesbury Valley Abattoir north of Sydney has been shut down after an undercover operation revealed extreme cruelty. A video documenting the cruelty was shown on ABC Lateline on Feb 11. Vet Dr Mark Simpson found more than 100 breaches of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act on the video. Pigs were beaten on the head up to 13 times with a metal bar by a slaughterman, sheep were incorrectly stunned and took minutes to die, and cattle were repeatedly prodded with electric prods.

Of course the executive director of the NSW Food Authority, Peter Day, was quick to defend the meat industry, calling this slaughterhouse a "rogue operation". (Adelaide Now, 10/2/12)

Lets not forget that only last November the LE Giles slaughterhouse in Gippsland, Victoria, was shut down after footage was taken of pigs being electrically stunned in the eyes and ears, beaten to death with a sledge hammer and allowed to run into a scalding bath (The Age, 26/11/11). No doubt another rogue operation.

The fact is that cutting the throats of animals is always a bloody and horrendous business. Those who carry out this gruesome job day in day out can hardly afford to have fine feelings towards their victims. It isn't a question of rogue operators - suffering will continue while consumers continue to buy pieces of animals on neatly wrapped styrene trays.