Any of you ever raised chidckens for market? Any of you ever plucked carcasses? Go back to you "Global Warming" fixation. Why would chicken producers cut off the beaks and tongues of chickens...makes no sense, but it makes big drama. Save the Polar Bears they are cuter. Chickens are usually dispatched as quickly as possible, yes boiling water is used in the plucking process, but only after the birds are all ready dead. Slitting throats happens more often with cows and large game than it ever does with birds. Fowl are usually killed by strangulation which is quick, and without incident. If anything the head is removed by the body by hatchet or blade of some sort.
Yes - well my relatives have and i have seen the whole sorry process first hand. I'm not sure about the tongues but the beaks - i have seen being snipped of on a horrible machine - i'd imagine the tongues come of in that process as well. http://all-creatures.org/anex/chicken-debeak-01.jpg The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), set up by the UK government, has described this mutilation as " a serious welfare insult to the hen " (1). SA research scientist Dr Phil Glatz has described the pain and stress of debeaking as follows (2): " In the short term beak trimming is likely to be stressful in a number of ways. The hen has to be approached, caught and restrained by the operator - a procedure which has been shown to evoke fear in hens. The procedure of cutting and cauterising the beak of the hen with a heated blade is likely to result in acute short term pain because of the presence of cutaneous afferent nerves in the beak which respond to thermal stimuli. Furthermore, the beak of hens contains mechanoreceptors which when removed appear to impair the mechanical ability of the beak to pick up food both in the short and long term. " http://urveg.org/campaigns/wegmans/responses/debeaked.jpg They sure are - I do not like the way animals especialy chickens are treated - i can see it is catch 22 though . Don't remove the beak and they hurt themselves and others . However the chicken is raised [the supposed good way or bad way]they end up in a pretty miserable environment and are slaughtered.
Gardner, in large crowded operations hens peck at each other constantly. they cause injuries that infect. no beak, no injury. (granted less animals per square meter helps too) I think if you want chicken, you should raise chicken, and know what the whole process is.
That would be ideal, yes, but not feasible for much of America. But it is easy to avoid KFC (and the likes) and to try to buy locally raised chicken.
Everything that your commenting on above, and saying that you don't believe, it's all true. I promise, i've seen it for myself in a video that was so sickening i had to turn off in the end. And when you said "why would chicken producers cut off beaks and tongues of chickens...makes no sense, but it makes big drama", that just shows me that you recognize how sick it is, and its so horrible that you don't want to believe anyone would do that. But it true, they do cut off their beaks, while the chickens are still contious, and why would they do that you ask? well thats the exact point were trying to make, that there is no reason, they are just cruel and sick, and they NEED to be stopped. That's all were saying.
Yes yes, the corporations are out to torture chickens before they kill them, because it is obviously in their best interest to fuck about wasting time making those little feathered meatballs as uncomfortable as they can. Someone where I work used to actually work in a chicken factory, where the ***actual killing*** takes place (yes, they kill them!). Apparently they are hung upside down, dipped into a water bath where they are electrocuted and die instantly, then sent off for processing. Sure, they are dipped in hot water and stuff to get their feathers off, but a fundemental point here is that they are already dead. It all sounds a rather swift process. It transpires that KFC and the such take their meat from the graded chickens that can't be sold whole in supermarkets. Also, if you have a look on their website, they have schemes in place to ensure the welfare of animals they buy. All in all I'd rather believe people who have actually been a part of the process, and what the company says than some paranoid 16 year old girl who has heard so and so from her mate Bethany and seen some video online. Heartcore, I am thoroughly shocked that you and a couple of your mates protesting outside a single KFC hasn't made them change their suppliers' farming practises.. and to be honest I doubt your 'facts' are all that accurate. Just think, all those manhours spent protesting you could've gone and got a job.
Joaquin, it is true that some such of these "murder factories" may do their killing in the most humane way possible, but there are so many more others that do not. Almost any fast food organization you choose to eat at whether it be McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell, etc. you're going to realize that because they are such a large corporation they have to order their meat products in large quantities and therefore need to order from suppliers who have enough meat. Some of these suppliers only have enough meat because they pack the animals into cages that are too filled with animals to be comfortable, feed the animals antibiotics, and other chemical hormones that stave off infection from the living conditions while simultaneously causing the animals too grow at an alarmingly quick pace where their bones can't keep up with their body weight and they just snap. The animal couldn't move even if it weren't shoved in a cage with 30 other animals- it's bones are broken and useless. The beaks are cut off to avoid any "danger" to the humans "caring" for the animals. The animals are hung upside down by one leg before being swung along this machine which dunks them into boiling water which de-furs or de-feathers them. But are you aware that in many cases when the animals are electrocuted they are merely stunned and not dead, and feel every bit of pain when they are boiled alive.. Some of these "factories" are humane, but the majority are not. And for anyone who is going to protest KFC they may as well protest all the other big wig fast food chains because they're all the same when it comes down to the base of it. The same goes for your local big wig grocery store. Maybe you should stop at the butcher in Pick 'N save and ask him where the meat came from. See what he says.
Ok, so KFC in the UK has this process to ensure the best possible six weeks of life for chickens. Yum brands in the US does not. Since KFC is the largest buyer of chicken for the restaurant market, they get the attention. I raised chickens as a youngster. I have farmed. I've not worked in processing, but I know plenty who have. the way it is supposed to be isn't what really happens: people get tired, quotas go up, the production line speeds up (kosher and not: different methods of slaughter) Joaquin, you seem to be here to insult people (general observation from your postings). Personal insults are out of line. You can debate issues and actions, but keep it in those realms. Personal attacks are not allowed here.
this may be off-topic, but, the fast food industry fucks real people in the ass everyday and dont even spit on it.~~~~ Farmworker exploitation & paternalistic treatment of youth: I`m leavin` it Listen up clown, This is a member of your so-called marketing “sweet spot” talking to you. I do not claim to represent all 18 to 24 year olds, nor do I need to because very soon you will encounter an avalanche of correspondence from us, and we, as a diverse, decentralized movement, will have a variety of ways of communicating with you. Perhaps by dispatching letters to your executive bosses, converting the bland walls of McDonald’s’ outlets with our art installations, and fomenting campaigns at our schools to oust your Big Mac-peddling establishments from campus. Now, Ronald, this is not a threat. It is a reasonable assumption based on the spectrum of tactics we students and youth employed during the Taco Bell Boycott, a campaign which Mother Jones awarded the Campus Activism Victory of the Year in 2005. If you want to understand how we think (and we know you do, or else how would you convince us to buy your burgers?) then understand this: we think the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the immigrant farmworker-led crew of activists in southern Florida calling on your bosses to fix their complicity in widespread labor abuse, has initiated a dynamic, unstoppable movement. A century back, Ricardo Flores Magon, a native of Oaxaca and a one-time immigrant farmworker in the U.S., wrote of the revolution transpiring in his homeland that: The people of Mexico find themselves in these moments of open rebellion against their oppressors, and, taking part in the general insurrection are those who sustain modern ideas: those convinced of the fallacy of political remedies as a means of redeeming the proletariat from economic slavery, those who do not believe in the goodness of paternalistic governments nor in the impartiality of laws worked out by the bourgeoisie, those who know that the emancipation of the workers must be carried out by the workers themselves, those convinced of the need for direct action. While the CIW also comprises workers originally from Guatemala, Haiti and other areas of the Global South, Magon`s words strikingly echo the spirit of struggle in the CIW’s pursuit of what they term Fair Food. Today, food harvesting in the U.S. is anything but fair: tomato pickers in Immokalee must pick two tons of tomatoes one-by-one – literally 4,000 pounds – just to make $50, and they regularly work 10 to 12 hour days with no overtime pay, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever. But instead of begging the government to intervene (local politicos are reliant on campaign contributions from the agriculture bigwigs whose industry dominates Florida’s economy), the CIW demands change from those directly responsible for their oppression. This is you and your imperial fast food compatriots, Ronald. It is McDonald’s which authorizes the suffering of farmworkers to secure their profits. No one else in McDonald’s’ supply chain – the series of business deals moving a tomato from the misery of the fields to your Happy Meals – walks away so handsomely, and we youth have taken notice, thanks principally to the brave denunciations of farmworkers themselves. After their defeat in 2004, Taco Bell affirmed the ability of fast food leaders to remedy abuses perpetrated at the other end of their supply chain by caving in to all of the CIW’s demands including wage increases and a progressive Code of Conduct (whereby the CIW themselves would investigate reported labor abuses). But there are 3 other gems of insight regarding corporate campaigns that we, youth organizing with the CIW for Fair Food, have gleaned from the Taco Bell Boycott: 1. Given both the U.S.’ intensely anti-labor climate as well as the chilling power of capitalism’s most influential players, it is often more strategic to organize for social change at the point of consumption rather than the point of production. Over the last decade and a half, CIW members have held community-wide work stoppages, hunger strikes and multi-day marches across Florida to pressure employers to raise their wages and improve their working conditions. But substantial change only finally came about when, based on an evolved understanding of who is predominantly responsible for their condition, the CIW switched targets – from crew bosses to Taco Bell – and, consequently, we consumers were able to organize ourselves in solidarity. 2. In today’s capitalist world, image is everything. Therefore, for many corporations their brand is also an Achilles heel. Your bosses know this well. It is precisely why they invest $1.2 billion annually in advertising and why they have worked to sculpt the Golden Arches into one of the planet’s most recognizable images. It is exactly why Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and an outspoken ally of the CIW, explains that 96% of U.S. schoolchildren, when shown your picture, can identify you by name, Ronald. In 1997, when your bosses sued a pair of Greenpeace pamphleteers for libel, the judge ruled that “the sting of the leaflet to the effect that the Plaintiffs exploit children by using them, as more susceptible subjects of advertising, to pressurize their parents into going to McDonald’s is justified. It is true.” This is why your existence, Ronald, is, frankly, repugnant. Your life is an affront to the noble mission of clowning – you do not entertain children to make them happy, you seduce them into buying unhealthy food yielded from a supply chain grounded in the exploitation of farmworkers. Thankfully, your half-brother Rolando the Clown is tirelessly persuading McDonalds’ customers to help you see the error of your ways. And we, the thousands of youth intent on building a Fair Food Nation, Ronald, have his and the CIW’s back. 3. A decentralized network – comprised of numerous local chapters acting autonomously and coordinating their efforts – is powerfully effective because it diffuses consciousness and struggle to multiple fronts while empowering local groups to determine for themselves what actions they will take, thereby diversifying tactics nationwide and complicating response efforts for the corporation under attack. Over the course of the Taco Bell Boycott, students from over 400 schools participated in organizing with the CIW for Fair Food. By the time Taco Bell cried uncle, we youth – operating within the Student/Farmworker Alliance network – had either purged or prevented Taco Bell from doing on-campus business at 22 different schools. As you can imagine, the public relations fall-out was devastating for Taco Bell, and their little dog, too. Already, even without the CIW having asked allies to boycott McDonald’s, we youth are organizing to make you and your bosses recognize farmworkers’ dignity and to collaborate with them directly to remedy the inhumane pay and abusive treatment they endure. In October, in what we deemed the 1-2 Punch (two days of youth-led solidarity events supporting the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food), we launched forty actions in twenty-one states primarily aimed at McDonald’s. And in just a few weeks, from April 13-14, thousands of us will be converging at your corporate offices to demand justice for tomato pickers, followed by a spirited parade and carnaval in downtown Chicago. We have caravans leaving from more than 25 cities across the nation, and just recently, Tom Morello and Zach de la Rocha – formerly of Rage Against the Machine – joined countlesss others in RSVPing for what promises to be a historic weekend of art, music and cultural resistance. If we don’t see you there Ronald, I promise you will see (and hear) us. It is not enough that your bosses deny farmworkers the fair wages their hard labor clearly merits, they also assume that their marketing “sweet spot” – that’s us – doesn’t care about their treatment of the folks picking their tomatoes. Or, equally insulting, your bosses assume that we are so ignorant that we would believe them over the word of the individuals who are enduring this abuse. (In this sense, we are not just fighting for your bosses to recognize farmworkers` dignity but indeed that of their youthful prospective diners: us – and in the process of that crucial discovery we trust that your bosses will locate and nurture their own dignity as well.) It’s like this, Ronald: In the same way that you apply make-up to conceal the bosses shamefully attempt to hide the miserable payprofit-making. After the CIW went public in their petition for McDonald’s’ intervention, your bosses tried to pretend that farmworkers aren’t really poor. A startlingly shoddy statistical study emerged, paid for by your bosses, which attempted go public. (I know Community Labor Action Project, @TX Austin affiliate of the Student/Farmworker Alliance network
I posted that earlier - i read it and it seems like they are doing a good job. I'd wonder how the differing pratices are in differing countries.
I've raised chickens for eggs and meat and we never resorted to beak clipping. Most injury caused to our flocks were caused by roosters and their spurs, but by not introducing roosters that risk was minimized. But then we weren't trying to get the most production out of the least square footage. And all of our chickens got to experience some quality of life. And some even died of old age. Perhaps if we had kept twenty chickens in a 3 foot cage we would have...but that's just wrong. And not the way most chicken breeders operate. Only the huge syndicate or coporate farms operate that way.
Gardner, most of the barns (usually Tyson) in Oklahoma and Arkansas are confined raising, with small battery cages, still. they are contracted to the companies, not owned by them (a piecework situation) Joaquin, I see a lot of good intent, but I here reports from some of the farmers that the guidelines are NOT followed.
Well unless there is a law passed which states that chickens have the same status as a person they are not guilty of murder. It would be dificult to show that a chicken is self aware and therefore would not be possible to attribute a persona to a chicken. In newzealand there is a law which states that killing a chimpanzee is murder This is a lie since that would mean they couldnt eat either. What they do is to blunt the beak Absolute lies ! where is your evidence ??? from a source that is recognised as an appointed industry watchdog? 3. Slit their throats (yes...they're still conscious) They stun them with an electrical device first and cut their throat to let out the blood otherwise the blood would degenerate inside the chicken HA HA HA this is a troll just posting for effect I can spot one a mile or two away ! How about if you start collecting documentary evidence that what you say is true, dates times, names, you go undercover and take secret hidden cameras to the slaughterhouses and farms, get a job there and expose them, then you send the evidence to about 20 diffent government orgs and news outlets I bet they prefer Macdonalds
