Sometimes, I wonder, if in this “age of information”, if we were better off back in the good old days of being in the dark about relatively everything. One of those times was this week, when I read a story that originally broke on the internet regarding the treatment of baby male chicks by chicken “farms”.
Apparently, there is little need for males in the poultry industry. This somewhat makes sense, but the way that this problem is handled by the modern egg-producing industry mortified me. Baby male chicks are “sorted, discarded, and handled like mere cogs in a machine “. And when they say “discarded”, they mean the animals are thrown alive into a grinding machine, where they are torn to pieces.
Sadly, these little chicks might be better off than their female counterparts, who are spared the death-machine, but instead get to live a miserable life of what amounts to essentially torture.
This article, which can be read here, stuck with me all week long. I just can’t seem to shake it off like I can with the myriad of other horrible news stories I read every week. It really has me wondering if it might be time to jump on the vegan train. But I know I am only kidding myself. I am not even sure I could adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, much less a vegan one. I like the taste of animals, cheese and eggs way too much. Raising my own animals isn’t an option, and even if it was, I’d end up making them all pets – there’s no way I could kill them myself. I’m too much of an animal softie.
This heartless quote is probably the single biggest thing that made this story poke at me all week:
“There is, unfortunately, no way to breed eggs that only produce female hens. If someone has a need for 200 million male chicks, we’re happy to provide them to anyone who wants them. But we can find no market, no need.”
So it’s OK to throw them alive into what is essentially a shredder? If they have to die, isn’t there some better way we can do this? A gas chamber, maybe?
For me, the question is, what do I personally do from here? Not sure, but I am going to mull it over while munching a chicken sandwich.
Baby chicks at the largest egg hatchery
