What happens to male chickens?
I saw this video yesterday about what happens to male chickens (chicks) in the poultry industry as was thoroughly surprised to say the least. I had *assumed* (a very bad word and set of ideas) that, like cows and other animals, they were fattened-up for slaughter like their female counterparts. It still isn’t pretty, but this is how our food supply is grown. Nope, these baby male chicks, a few minutes after being “hatched” by a machine get their beaks cut and then are ground-up alive.
Does this video convince me to become a Vegan or Vegetarian? Nope, but I can’t say I eat much chicken anyhow as, although healthy, it just doesn’t taste good in my opinion. Salmon or tuna are far healthier in every way than chicken.
At least the females get to live right? Well, give this video to watch their fate. I’m not sure if it’s much better then that of male chickens. If I had a choice, I would ask to be born as a male chicken to be honest.
Symptom of a larger problem
Alright, that was disturbing wasn’t it! Well, this is nothing compared to what humans are doing on a daily basis across various fields, from open pit mining activities to the incredible waste involved with clear cutting entire forests or deep ocean trawling. The reason why our species has done so well on Earth is because we are very good at controlling information (preventing others from seeing the truth), gathering once a resource is found (exploiting it with little regard as to the consequences that may happen to others) and continuing this myth regarding the importance of ourselves above all other creatures.
We have a serious Napolean complex, species wide, when it comes to the rest of the natural world. I sure hope that if aliens ever come to visit us, they don’t treat us the same way we treated Earth or its other living citizens.
What is the solution?
I think videos like this, and there are no lack of them relating to just about every intensive industry out there, should be used as a warning. I don’t believe in God nor any type of higher being but I do believe that what you sow, you will reap. As such, treating life no different than if it was a rock has and will catch-up to us big time in the future. What can we do to solve this situation? I think the first is a return to community based farming practices. For instance, it makes no sense why eggs need to be shipped all around the country (or world for that matter)… setting-up small regional co-ops for plant and other nutritional requirements needs to go away from this industrial scale enterprise back into small ones where children can learn about the food they eat and the real work involved with traditional farming.
I have no problem eating chicken or other animals, I am not nor will I ever become a vegetarian, but this senseless, unnecessary cruelty we are so well at perpetrating really needs to stop.
Humans are worse!
Considering the trillions of dollars spent every year on technologies that are dedicated towards the destruction and killing of other people (the military), humans may treat other animals badly but we also invest in the capabilities of spreading this ability onto others of our own race! I don’t know of any other animal that, on a daily basis, tries to develop weapons that will more “easily” kill another of its species. Nature is cruel, but because of our evolved consciousness, instead of trying to reduce the amount happening around us, we seem hell-bent on bringing it up to a whole new level due to insecurities, failures and unfounded fears.
The Bottom Line
When humans lose touch with nature, industrial farming practices are able to thrive.
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I will be sending these videos to everyone I know. I am proud to say I have watched not only this video but others about how our meat, chicken, and dairy products arrive at our tables and supermarkets. We should be ashamed, simply ashamed, how anyone can watch this or any other related video and still eat meat, dairy, or chicken simply baffles my mind. Don’t they realize that because they eat it they want it even more. The same can be said about a nice green smoothy, the more you drink them the more your body craves it!! I do believe in god and I am just going to start living life the vegan way, no matter what. I simply won’t eat a friend, and animals are my friends. I wouldn’t eat my dog so why would I eat a cow. When I drive by a farm I look at the cows and I want to stop and get out and go and brush the flies from their eyes, and touch them. Now I have seen this video, my heart is broken, simply broken. Everyone needs to stop this insanity. It cost 20 dollars for a what is considered prime steak, oh my god, couldn’t we do better with our money?????? Shame on anyone who supports any of these industries. SHAME ON YOU
Hi Susan, although I respect your views and yes, there is a lot of cruelty in the “meat/poultry” industry, we are far crueler to our own (animal) species than we are to any of these chickens seen in this video. Do I still eat meat? Absolutely, but maybe once or twice a week… same goes with poultry. Shaming somebody and taking the “I am holier than thow” approach does nothing to move these issues forward.
If I had to pick living the rest of my life in the “chicken factory” seen in this video or held captive as a POW, to be honest, I’m sure these chickens, no matter how awful their condition and lives… would count themselves lucky as would I. It’s important to keep things in perspective and not using blanket statements, not the ENTIRE industry is like this, just like not EVERYBODY is evil to our fellow creatures just because they happen to eat their kin.
Saying that “veganism” (if that is a word) or “vegetarianism” is the only solution to animal cruelty not only dumbs down the debate but makes your whole position seem all the more extreme, thus discounted from the get-go. To me, it’s the equivalent of saying that the answer to every scientific inquiry is “God made it that way” thus closing critical thinking processes needed for a real debate, keeping people ignorant as to what the truth really is.
The only solution is punishing those who do bad things to animals (including our species) while opening the lines of discussing regarding the ethical manner of producing a viable and necessary food product. We are omnivores, we require meat as much as we do vegetables, fruits and nuts… it’s the way we have evolved and denying this is doing nobody any good service. You will die a rather slow death if we still lived out in nature cutting meat out completely (including poultry). We need it to stay mentally and physically balanced, our bodies need it to keep functioning at peak intensity… and this is why we crave it.
That being said, I’m more then happy enough to punish those who hurt animals of all kinds with the same treatment reflected in kind to them… regardless of the animal they struck terror into. I feel no shame in eating a chicken anymore than I do a carrot, I’m not about denying what I am, simply understanding my origins and acknowledging them.
Thanks for your comment Susan,
Jon