Recently a woman described the shock she experienced
while touring an egg factory in Pennsylvania. When the lights were
switched on in one of the blacked-out houses, the voices of the hens
inside "rose to a cacophony, accompanied by the sound of thousands of
beaks pecking on metal. The hens stuck their heads in and out of the
cages, pecking at the feed trays, which were empty." The manager
explained that this was the first day of a seven-day "fast." The hens
were upset because they expected to be fed; by the end of seven days
they would be quieter. After losing up to 30 percent of their
bodyweight, denuded of feathers, starved, and deranged by fear, they
would be stupefied or dead.
If the average person decided to withhold food from
their dog or cat for days or weeks, that person would probably be
charged with cruelty to animals and the news media would take the story
and run with it. Yet, each year the egg industry intentionally deprives
millions of hens of food for up to ten days. But the cameras aren't
rolling on the hens' behalf and no one is going to jail. This speaks
volumes about the way our society views animals used for food. These
animals are unprotected against the cruelest practices. Only consider
that 98 percent of hens used in egg production in the United States are
painfully debeaked and crammed into cages so small they can't assume a
single normal body posture.
The practice of starving hens for profit is known as
forced-molting. Molting literally refers to the replacement of old
feathers by new ones. In nature, birds replace all their feathers in the
course of a year to maintain good plumage at all times. A natural molt
often happens at the onset of winter, when nature discourages the
hatching of chicks. The hen stops laying eggs and concentrates her
energies on staying warm and growing new feathers.
The egg industry exploits this natural process by
forcing an entire flock to molt simultaneously. This is done to
manipulate the marketplace and to pump a few hundred more eggs out of
exhausted hens when it is deemed cheaper to "recycle" them rather than
immediately slaughter them after a year of relentless egg-laying on a
calcium-deficient diet.
To trigger the physiological shock of the forced molt, a
University of California poultry researcher (Donald Bell) recommends the
removal of all food for no less than five days and as long as fourteen
days. Survivors may be force-molted two or three times, based on
economics. At any given time over 6 million hens in the U.S. are being
systematically starved in their cages, according to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. Dr. Peter Dun, an animal scientist from Scotland, said
hens are force molted in the United States "until their combs turn
blue."
Forced molting should be banned in this country as was
done in Great Britain in 1987. In addition to being cruel and immoral,
it causes disease. Forced molting is a major cause of Salmonella
poisoning. USDA studies reported in Poultry Science show forced molting
in combination with a Salmonella infection create an actual disease
state in the alimentary tract of tested hens. Prolonged food deprivation
wrecks the hens' immune system, making them prey to the poisonous
bacteria that infest the packed confinement buildings in which they lay
their eggs.
Currently, there is not a single federal law in the
United States to protect poultry from the most outrageous forms of
abuse. For this reason, two nonprofit animal advocacy organizations,
United Poultry Concerns and the Association of Veterinarians for Animal
Rights, have developed a petition urging the egg industry to take
immediate steps to eliminate the cruel practice of forced molting. To
date, the industry relies on the notion that Americans couldn't care
less how a farm animal is treated. Public pressure is crucial. Readers
wishing to receive more information, including a copy of the petition to
stop the forced molting of laying hens, are encouraged to write to
United Poultry Concerns, http://www.upc-online.org, PO Box 59367, Potomac, Maryland 20859; and the
Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights. http://www.avar.org, PO
Box 208, Davis, CA 95617.
Copyright UPC & AVAR. Individuals, organizations, & news
media have full permission to copy, reprint & distribute this article
and are encouraged to do so.
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