Poultry Farming
Kavita Jaidiya
Poultry Farming
Poultry farming is the raising of certain species of birds for production of food for the purpose of human use. Chickens are the most commonly raised fowl due to more consumption and better profit. Poultry play a important socio-cultural role in many societies. The industry is filled with animal suffering at every stage from the hatching of chicks to their slaughter.
- There are four different types of birds that are commonly classified as poultry.
Chickens
Chickens are the bird that is most commonly associated with poultry farming. Chickens make up 95 percent of farmed poultry. There are two different classes of chicken that can be raised in the poultry farming industry: broiler chickens and laying hens.
| Broiler chickens | Laying hens |
| These chickens are raised to be slaughtered and eaten. Some of the most popular breeds of broiler chickens grow so quickly that they reach an average slaughter weight of 6.2 pounds in just a matter of weeks.
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Laying Chickens
Laying hens are those that are raised to produce eggs. These hens often spend their lives in cages barely larger than they are. During their short life of 72 weeks, birds lay upwards of 320 eggs. This is despite their ability to live much longer productive lives of roughly four years if left to lay at a slower, more natural rate.
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Turkeys
Turkeys are smart animals that are capable of forming tight bonds with members of their flock and with other animals, including humans. When a turkey goes missing from the flock the other members of the group have been known to make sounds of distress until the lost bird has been found.
Ducks and Geese
Ducks and geese are both waterfowl (they are capable swimmers and have webbed feet). Though they are often mistaken for each other, but the key difference is that ducks have fewer bones in their necks than geese. Ducks also tend to have shorter necks.
Ducks
Ducks are considered an “easy” animal to raise due to their docile nature. This coupled with the fact that duck eggs and meat are relatively expensive to purchase at grocery stores means that these birds are an ideal candidate for poultry farming operations to raise if they are willing to sacrifice the animals’ welfare. One of the most profitable ways to raise a duck is to keep him in a small pen that barely allows for movement and force-feed him until his liver is engorged.
Geese
A domestic goose that humans have domesticated and kept for their meat, eggs or down feathers.
Guinea Fowl and Squabs
Guinea fowl and squabs are less frequently farmed than chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. Guinea fowl are also frequently used as alert animals as they are known to alarm at the smallest irregularities. Squabs are baby pigeons. Pigeons are known to be extraordinarily intelligent and have been found to be as capable at mathematics as monkeys.
Techniques of Poultry Farming
Poultry farming techniques—whether for eggs or meat—are fraught with cruelty and suffering.
Laying Hens
The methods by which vast numbers of eggs are produced every year entail serious suffering for millions of laying hens.
Because they are not able to lay eggs, male chicks are not needed for the industry. They are not raised and used for meat because their small adult size would not be worth enough to offset the cost of feeding them into adulthood.
Beak Trimming
Within the first few days of life female chicks have their beaks trimmed. This process involves the removal of the tip of the beak to prevent the birds from pecking at each other. However, the procedure can cause both acute and chronic pain and also has lasting impacts on the birds’ ability to behave naturally.
Battery Cages
Laying hens are overwhelmingly housed in cages around the world. On average each hen has less space than an A4 sheet of paper in which to move around, preventing them from even spreading their wings. This lack of space makes a number of natural behaviors impossible, including nesting, perching, and dustbathing.
Broiler Chickens
Two of the dominant forms of suffering experienced by broiler chickens are an abnormally fast growth rate and an in humane slaughter process that leaves thousands of chickens fully conscious at the time of their death.
Slaughter
The most common method of slaughter for broiler chickens is live shackle slaughter. This method involves hanging chickens upside down in shackles on a mechanized slaughter line running at speeds of up to 175 birds per minute. This leads to many animals being incorrectly hung and consequently having their limbs mangled or losing them altogether. The disassembly line then continues to an electrified water bath that is intended to stun the birds. Yet, many birds are ineffectively stunned or miss the bath completely, meaning that they are fully conscious when their throats are sliced open, surrounded by the frightened sounds of their flock.
Hatchery
Hatcheries are where most chickens begin their lives. Eggs are removed from the mother birds and placed into incubators. PETA found that at a commercial hatchery in India many chicks hatched with deformities, including some with organs outside of their bodies.
Poultry Farming Bad
Antibiotics
Antibiotics can be used as a means to reduce suffering in chickens. However, their overuse to encourage swift growth and prevent disease contributes to antibiotic resistance which the World Health Organization has characterized as one of the biggest threats to public health.
Arsenic
The drug is frequently used to promote growth, kill parasites, and improve the pigmentation of the meat. Long term exposure of arsenic to fowls can be a source of cancer.
Diseases
Birds are kept in very small areas with thousands of other chickens. Coupled with our increasing tendency to ship birds and their products across borders, this increases the risk of disease spread. The conditions in which animals are kept on poultry farming operations provide the ideal place for diseases to flourish and pandemics to start.
Worker Health
Chicken farmers have a difficult job that can have negative health impacts. The high levels of ammonia in the chicken barns can cause harm to workers’ respiratory health. They also run the risk of being exposed to any diseases that the birds may have. Working on a slaughter line can also cause high levels of mental anguish due to the nature of the job.
Overcrowded Sheds
The overcrowded sheds common in the poultry farming industry cause high levels of stress in birds and can contribute to trampling and birds pecking at each other. In order to curb this behavior, beak trimming, an equally painful fate, has become commonplace for laying hens.
Battery Cages
Laying hens are commonly kept in battery cages with an area so small that it prevents the birds from even spreading their wings.
Starvation Diets
Broiler chickens that are kept for breeding purposes are commonly fed only every other day, or fed only a quarter of the food that it would take to satisfy their hunger. They have been bred to consume large amounts of food to support their swift growth, but the breeding birds must be kept leaner than birds meant for slaughter, to avoid the collapse, organ failure, and infertility experienced by the birds intended for human consumption.
Lighting Manipulation
Laying hens are biologically inclined to lay eggs more frequently during the longer days of the spring and early summer, to ensure that chicks are raised during the warmest months of the year. However, through light manipulation, poultry farming operations are able to capitalize on this trait and create lighting circumstances that induce the hens to lay year-round at maximum capacity. This takes a toll on the hen’s body, which breaks down after two years or less when she is no longer able to keep up with the farmer’s demands.
The Future of Poultry Farming
The poultry farming industry is filled with animal suffering. Birds are crammed into cages too small to flap their wings, have their beaks trimmed causing lifelong pain, are force-fed, and are slaughtered while conscious. In addition to this terrible suffering, the poultry farming industry has detrimental impacts on the environment due to the high levels of pollution it produces. However, there is still hope; by reducing the amount of chicken, eggs, and other poultry farming products that we consume we can reduce the number of animals that are part of this cruel system
