600 MILLION CHICKENS in ONE DAY !
If you were to give 2 chickens to every man, woman, and child in the Unites States …. that’s how many chicken wings that will be eaten….. TODAY!
It’s Super Bowl Sunday.
In fact, if the wings were laid end-to-end, they would circle the circumference of the planet more than twice, which is about a quarter of the way to the moon.
Think about that.
We’re killing 600 MILLION chickens……TODAY……..just to eat their wings!
Why? Because a bunch of guys are going to play a game by throwing around a piece of pig skin and we’re all going to watch and eat chicken wings. Obviously not a Vegan friendly sport!
Is this CRAZY or what?!
I love football as much as any guy (Go Broncos!). BUT….am I the only one who sees how insane this chicken wing thing is?
“This year, according to the National Chicken Council (yes this exists) experts estimate about 4% more chicken will be ‘produced’ compared to last year thanks to lower feed costs.”
‘Produced’ – is chicken industry speak for ‘factory farms’.
Ugh – now you got me started………
The Broilers
Chickens raised for their meat, or ‘broilers’ in chicken industry speak, spend their entire lives in filthy sheds with tens of thousands of other birds. With that kind of crowding and confinement – there is massive amounts of disease. (Any chicken recalls lately?)
They are bred and drugged to grow so large so quickly that their legs and organs can’t keep up. Heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformities are common. Many become crippled under their own weight and eventually die because they can’t reach the water nozzles.
When they are only 6 or 7 weeks old, they are crammed into cages and trucked to slaughter.
The Layers
Laying hens are crammed together in wire cages so tight they don’t even have enough room to spread their wings.
Chickens are normally clean animals, but because they are crammed so closely together, they are forced to pee and poop on each other, oh and the tip of their beaks are cut off so that they won’t peck each other to death.
After their bodies are completely worn out and their egg production drops, they are shipped to slaughter. Think of these poor girls every time you open that can of chicken soup, as their flesh is too bruised and battered to be used for anything else.
Maybe canned chicken too, or Cat food.
The Men
So much for the ladies.
Because the male chicks can’t lay eggs, and are not bred to produce a lot of ‘meat’ for the industry, they are just killed.
Period. Yes, as baby chicks. End of story.
Every year, more than 100 million of these baby boys are simply tossed into garbage bags to suffocate, or sent through a grinder –
…alive.
In the End
The chickens that DO survive this nightmare are slammed into small crates and trucked to the slaughterhouse. Hundreds of millions suffer broken wings and legs from rough handling, and millions die from the stress of the journey.
At the slaughterhouse, they are shackled, hung upside down, their throats are cut (maybe) , and then they are dunked in scalding-hot water to remove their feathers. What many people don’t realize, because there are no animal cruelty laws for these poor birds, almost all of them are still somewhat conscious when their throats are cut, and many are literally scalded to death in the feather-removal tanks after missing the throat cutter.
Without a doubt, chickens are the most abused animal on the planet.
In the United States, more than 7 billion chickens are killed for their meat each year. That’s 1 chicken for every living person on the planet.
Another 452 million hens are used for their eggs. And 99% of these animals spend their entire life in total confinement—from the moment they hatch until the day they are killed.
I know people got to eat – I get that. Brand New Vegans like us know you don’t have to eat chicken to survive.
But for the majority of people out there that insist on eating meat – specifically chickens – there has GOT to be a better way. :(
