Factory Farming Gone Wrong... 10 Horrifying Stories of the Poultry Industry

Do you really know what your factory-farmed meat went through before it ended up on your plate? 

(Warning: Many of the images and stories in this slideshow are beyond disturbing.)

The fact is, this journey is not for the faint of heart, and these stories -- from the 400,000 baby chicks killed when a farm went bankrupt, to the 150,000 male chicks ground up alive each day. But they might also help you truly understand the impact of your diet.
While these stories might not convince the avid meat eater to go completely vegetarian -- many will find themselves considering other options, such as trimming down on meat consumption with a plan like Weekday Vegetarian or seeking out small, local farms that can guarantee a free-range, grass fed, and cruelty free life.

400,000 Baby Chicks Killed by Bankrupt Poultry Farm

While death at a factory farm is part of everyday life, the bankruptcy of Russia's Krasnaya Polyana chicken farm in December left the owners with 3 million birds -- and nowhere to place them.About 600,000 of the birds died from malnutrition, and 400,000 newborn chicks were killed, either by being drowned or dumped into outdoor trashcans where they froze to death, while "adult birds were thrown into a pit and buried alive with a tractor."The female workers who were responsible for disposing the chicks compared it to a mother killing herchildren, and reportedly cried while dumping the chicks.

Photo: Dmitry Noskoff

12,000 Baby Chicks Die in Factory Farm Fire

While the managers of International Poultry Breeders' farms in Georgiamust have thought they were on the right track when they left heaters on to warm baby chicks during a winter of record low temperatures, the plan backfired when the chicken housecaught fire, killing more than 12,000 chicks.The same farm lost nearly twice that many chicks in 2006 when a tornadotouched down, killing 20,000 chicks. And while all farms are susceptible to weather and fire, the sheer number of animals crowded into the spaces on farms like these make the casualties that much greater.

                                           

 150,000 Male Chicks Killed Every Day

 Mercy for Animals went undercover with a hidden camera to catch this disturbing video footage of life at a hatchery, where 150,000 male chicks are killed each day in an especially gruesome manner: They're put on aconveyor belt and ground up while still alive.

Since the males won't be able to produce more eggs and don't grow quickly enough to be used for meat, they're useless to the business. But as one writer points out, "Death by being ground alive is merciful in contrast: Chicks that get caught in the machinery, slip through, or accidentally end up in the wrong place at the wrong time suffer terribly before dying."              

Organic Eggs Don't Always Come from Happy Hens

 Buying organic meat and dairy is often better for your health and the health of the animals that provided it, but don't assume that just because a brand is organic, the animals spent their lives in a happy farmyard, clucking and oinking with plenty of space.

Farming campaign group The Cornucopia Institute spent two years visiting egg suppliers all over the United States, and found that evenorganically-raised animals were shuttered into pens and cages without any access to the outdoors -- making this a problem with factory farms that goes beyond what the animals are fed.As expected, the best practices were found at smaller producers instead of industrial farms.    

 

Salmonella in Eggs Leads to Major Recall

Though the correlation between tainted foods and factory farms isn't 100 percent, the most recent big recall -- of salmonella-filled eggs last summer -- comprised 550 million eggs, all from one industrial farm.

Animals on factory farms are often pumped with antibiotics to help them resist catching diseases that spring up from their living conditions. But some bacteria, including salmonella, have developed such a strong resistance to the antibiotics that they thrive on the farms.
In the case of the egg recall, the size of the farm led to the salmonella spreading to 17 states.

      

Antibiotics on Farm Animals Mean Resistant Urinary Tract Infections

It's not just animals viruses that become more resistant to bacteria because of factory farming, either.Last spring, scientists in Hong Kong pointed out a relationship between the overuse of antibiotics on farm animals and an increase in human urinary tract infections that resisted drug treatments.
The resistance is specifically linked with a form of E. coli and is passed to humans via contaminated water or food.
Though the study focused on subjects in Hong Kong, the researchers noted that the global food movement could cause the resistance to spread throughout the world in a relatively short time.

Genetic Alterations

Broiler chickens are genetically altered to grow a lot faster and produce more meat. These genetic alterations causes serious health problems for the animals. Their legs have trouble supporting their heavy bodies and their underdeveloped heart and lungs frequently result in congestive heart failure.

The Slaughterhouse

"Broiler" chickens are usually slaughtered when they are just 6 weeks old. Thousands of chickens are killed each hour at slaughterhouses.

At the slaughterhouse, fully conscious chickens are hung by their feet from shackles on a moving rail. Poultry is excluded from the Humane Slaughter Act, so stunning the chickens is not mandatory. Chickens are still stunned by running them through electrified water, but these stunning procedures are not monitored. Slaughterhouses commonly use lower currents than necessary to stun the chickens. Which mean that they are still able to feel pain when their throats are slashed. And if their throats aren't properly slashed, they are still conscious when they are submerged in a scalding tank.

It is very common for chickens to still be alive when they reach the scalding tank. The industry even has a name for them: "redskins".

Breeder Chickens

 The breeding animals who give birth to the 8 billion broiler chickens killed in the U.S. each year have been referred to as Gallus neglectedus, or "neglected chicken," by Dr. Joy Mench, a poultry scientist at the University of California, because their welfare is completely ignored.

Like the broiler chickens to whom they give birth, breeder chickens are confined to filthy sheds without access to sunlight, fresh air, or anything else that they would enjoy in nature.

When these birds are very young—usually just 1 to 10 days old—hot blades are used to cut large chunks off their sensitive beaks so that they won't peck each other out of frustration caused by the intense confinement. Sometimes their toes, spurs, and combs are also cut off. The birds are not given any painkillers to ease the agony of this mutilation, and many debeaked chickens starve to death because they are in too much pain to eat.

Breeder chickens are forced to live on factory farms for more than a year. Because they live so much longer, they face an even higher risk of organ failure and death as they grow larger and larger because of their manipulated genetics. In an attempt to fix this problem, the industry drastically limits the feed given to breeding birds, keeping the animals in a constant state of hunger and frustration.

When the birds drink more water to try to relieve their hunger, factory farm operators often reduce the available drinking water so that they won't have to clean up wet manure.

Some farmers shove thin plastic rods through the delicate nasal cavities of male breeding birds. The rods stick out of both sides of their faces, preventing them from reaching through the wire barrier to eat the females' food.

After more than a year of deprivation and confinement, the bodies of these breeding birds are too worn out to produce enough chicks for the farmer to sell. Frail and exhausted, they are loaded onto trucks and sent to slaughter.

Factory Farms are Huge Polluters

Still not convinced? Here's one more reason to avoid factory-farmed meat: The size of farms grew by 20 percentbetween 2002 and 2007. Even though the number of farms fell, the acreage (and number of animals) devoted to them is still growing. (Check out the maps to see how they're distributed).The growth of these farms means thepollution, animal cruelty, and diseaseassociated with them are also growing exponentially.

More on Factory Farming
Are Factory Farms to Blame for Swine Flu?
7 Reasons Not to Eat Factory-Farmed Food
So What Does the Inside of a Factory Farm Look Like Anyway?