LettersLetter from Roberta Schiff About Baby Goslings - 7 Jun 2011
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Letter from Roberta Schiff About Baby Goslings - 7 Jun 2011

Letter to the Editor, Poughkeepsie Journal

On June 6 you showed a photo of five baby goslings. They are sweet and pleasing and invoke the warm feelings that we have upon seeing baby animals. Most of us know how both geese parents keep their young near and watch out for them.

If it were baby chickens, most would like the photo too. But in our world today, these chicks never see their mothers, who would give them the same care. Those raised for meat are forced to grow so fast their hearts and legs painfully weaken. They are slaughtered at six weeks; in nature they would still be sleeping under their mother's wings.

Ninety-five percent of females born to egg laying hens are raised in wire cages where they can not stretch their wings and never see the light of day. Thousands are kept in ammonia fume filled buildings. The soft downy males are useless in modern factory farming; they are suffocated in garbage bags and discarded. "Free Range" chickens are usually crowded together in buildings and also have their beaks cut off with a hot iron. Egg layers are slaughtered for cheap food, like nuggets, when they can no longer lay large numbers of eggs. For more information visit United Poultry Concerns.

This will continue until more people become aware and change the market-place by buying and consuming fewer chickens and eggs. Could your family be part of the change? You can bake without eggs and choose more vegetarian meals. And feel good about helping to stop cruelty.

Roberta Schiff, Events Chair & VP
Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society


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