Factory Farming

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http://www.factoryfarming.com/poultry.htm

 

 

With a growing number of consumers switching from red meat to poultry, the

chicken and turkey industries are booming. In addition to the expanding U.S

market, poultry companies are also benefiting from expanding markets around the

world.

 

Record numbers of chickens and turkeys are being raised and killed for meat in

the U.S. every year. Nearly ten billion chickens and half a billion turkeys are

hatched in the U.S. annually. These birds are typically crowded by the thousands

into huge, factory-like warehouses where they can barely move. Each chicken is

given less than half a square foot of space, while turkeys are each given less

than three square feet. Shortly after hatching, both chickens and turkeys have

the ends of their beaks cut off, and turkeys also have the ends of their toes

clipped off. These mutilations are performed without anesthesia, ostensibly to

reduce injuries that result when stressed birds are driven to fighting.

 

Today's " broiler " (meat) chickens have been genetically altered to grow twice as

fast and twice as large as their ancestors. Pushed beyond their biological

limits, hundreds of millions of chickens die every year before reaching

slaughter weight at 6 weeks of age. An industry journal explains that " broilers

[chickens] now grow so rapidly that the heart and lungs are not developed well

enough to support the remainder of the body, resulting in congestive heart

failure and tremendous death losses. " Modern broiler chickens also experience

crippling leg disorders, as their legs are not capable of supporting their

abnormally heavy bodies. Confined in unsanitary, disease-ridden factory farms,

the birds also frequently succumb to heat prostration, infectious diseases, and

cancer.

 

Like meat-type chickens, commercial turkeys also suffer from serious physical

malformations wrought by genetic manipulation. In addition to having been

altered to grow quickly and unnaturally large, commercial turkeys have been

genetically manipulated to have extremely large breasts, in order to meet

consumer demand for breast meat. As a result, turkeys cannot mount and reproduce

naturally, so their sole means of reproduction is artificial insemination. And

similar to broiler chickens, factory-farmed turkeys are prone to heart disease

and leg injuries as a consequence of their grossly-overweight bodies. An

industry journal laments that:

 

 

Turkeys have been bred to grow faster and heavier but their skeletons haven't

kept pace, which causes 'cowboy legs'. Commonly, the turkeys have problems

standing and fall and are trampled on or seek refuge under feeders, leading to

bruises and downgradings as well as culled or killed birds.

 

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