Chickens as Commodities - Christian Vegetarian Association

Chickens as Commodities

The recent storms that devastated many parts of the US are being felt also by the chicken industry. According to Alabama officials up to 25 percent of the poultry houses in the state were destroyed, killing millions of birds. Since chicken farming is a multibillion-dollar industry in Alabama, where a typical poultry house contains about 20,000 birds, the damages are still being assessed. However, this disaster "isn't enough to disrupt chicken supplies nationally. The state usually produces about 21.5 million chickens in a week, while the US produces roughly nine billion chickens annually" as reported in the article.

To learn more please search online for US Storms Kill Five Million Chickens

This story and the way it’s being reported, should appall all of us! Nowhere in the article the suffering of chickens is mentioned or even a hint of sadness for the loss of those millions of God’s creatures is conveyed. Instead, the only mention is the value in dollars that these chickens are worth to humans and the small effect this might have for the supply of chicken meat in the US. If the way we reduced God’s farmed animals to mere commodities does not tug at our hearts, we may indeed be leading Creation to total degradation: physical and spiritual.