The Humane Slaughter Act Ignores Chickens and Endangers People

Chickens are fully as capable of feeling pain as other livestock and should be granted protection under the Humane Slaughter Act. Unbelievably, no federal laws exist that govern the raising, transport or slaughter of chickens in the U.S. The current process of killing chickens is so inhumane that it is truly hell on earth for these sensitive, social and intelligent birds. Almost 10 billion chickens as well as turkeys and ducks are slaughtered in the US each year for their meat as well as 400 million egg-laying hens, who are also eventually sent to their deaths. Add to this the still living, newly hatched 280 million male chicks of these hens, who are suffocated or ground up by egg producers every year because they are completely expendable in this unspeakably horrific industry.

Young broiler and roaster chickens destined to end up as meat live short, crippled, crowded lives of seven to ten weeks and are then shoved unceremoniously into cages in transport trucks for their long journey to the slaughterhouse. They are given absolutely no protection from the weather and no food or water whatsoever. Laying hens have it even worse. When they are no longer useful as egg producers, they are thrown into transport crates by whatever part of their anatomy is grabbed first. Filthy and practically featherless from living in crowded cages, psychologically traumatized, weak and injured, they are either buried alive at a landfill; sent to a rendering company to be shred into pet food, fur farm feed or chicken feed; or transported to a slaughterhouse, where they are tormented and killed in the assembly line to become food for humans.

At the slaughterhouse, chickens are literally torn from their truck transport crates and then roughly shackled upside down on a moving rack, which often severely bruises them and breaks their bones. They are then passed through an electric water bath which is supposed to stun and paralyze them so they won't fight back during processing. But the problem is that the bath doesn't always render them unconscious. They are merely paralyzed, with the ability to feel everything that's being done to them, including having their throats slit, burning, suffocation, and slow drowning while they are de-feathered by the second water bath of scalding water. Some 5,000 chickens are killed every hour in a typical slaughterhouse, which doesn't allow for time spent humanely killing each chicken. All of this is unspeakably painful and unacceptable for chickens to have to endure.

And it's not just the chickens who suffer. There's also a tremendous hygiene problem in the commercial slaughter process that can ultimately sicken and kill humans who eat the chickens. Chickens often vomit, defecate, and scratch at each other, and they inhale pathogens while in the water baths that can be passed on to humans.

As someone who has raised chickens, I've observed that these are fascinating creatures who, when allowed to lead a natural existence, live peacefully together in small flocks, and take sun baths and dust baths and scratch in the soil in search of small insects. They have distinct personalities. Hens are wonderful mothers and fiercely protect their chicks. Roosters also play an important role in guarding their flocks and participating in the egg-laying routine.

The Humane Slaughter Act must be amended to include more humane treatment of chickens from birth to death. This will not only help protect chickens from perfectly legal sadistic treatment on the part of chicken and egg producers, but it will also help ensure that consumers are not made ill by eating tainted meat.