Chapter 4: Pollution, Poultry Farming and the Planet

This week's excerpt from Going Vegan to Save the Planet comes from Chapter 4: Pollution, Poultry Farming and the Planet

The truth of poultry farming is beyond what many people can imagine. The cruelty begins with forcing hens to lay eggs and ends with a brutal, terrifying death.

The amount of waste and pollution that results from poultry farming is staggering

Culled Chicks

The egg industry uses chickens as egg-producing machines. In nature, chickens lay 10-15 eggs per year, depending on the breed and conditions. In the egg industry, chickens are manipulated, through intensive breeding and management practices, to lay up to 300 eggs per year. Also, in the egg industry, males have little worth. In sheds where birds are grown for meat, male and female 98 birds remain together. They don't live long enough to reach sexual maturity, so the sex of birds is not problematic. In egg production, male birds are worse than worthless; they are a problem to be solved. Organised by sex after hatching, male chicks go one way, females another. Female chicks move to controlled environments, called brooders, immediately after hatching for 6 to 8 weeks. They are then transferred to a growing area to increase weight and size. Called pullets at this point, they live in regulated conditions, ensuring that they reach the right body size and maturity for laying.

At 16 to 18 weeks old, pullets move to a laying facility. They will remain in this facility, laying eggs, until they can no longer produce. Being “spent hens,” the birds are then culled and used for products like pet food.

It’s more profitable to grind up billions of baby chicks than it is to raise them for meat – Seth Millstein

Due to selective breeding, male chicks at egg-laying facilities are not viable for meat. Considered poor quality meat, they develop little fat and are not commercially viable. They would, though, as living creatures, use resources to survive. It is not worth the investment of food, shelter and water to keep them, so hatcheries kill male chicks straight away. Some hatcheries place chicks in trays or crates in gas chambers that use carbon dioxide or argon. Carbon dioxide use is more common than argon, as although argon gas causes the chick less pain, carbon dioxide is cheaper. Some facilities use more simple methods.

Chicks can be suffocated, placed inside a bag that is sealed until the birds expire. Cervical dislocation is a manual method. A worker holds the chick's body in one hand and their head in the other. A sharp tug in opposite directions stretches and breaks the neck, killing the birds. Electrocution, rarely used, kills the birds by electric shock. But the most common method used to dispose of male chicks is maceration. A macerator is a mechanical device with an inlet and 99 output, with fast-spinning blades in the middle. Workers toss male chicks onto a conveyor belt, which carries them over the inlet of the macerator. When they fall in, the blades grind their bodies into pulp. The chicks are conscious during this process.

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