IN: ‘Chicken abuse leads to bird flu outbreak’

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*'Chicken abuse leads to bird flu outbreak'**

*

 

*Report | Manoj Anand*

 

Guwahati: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has warned that

if the conditions in poultry industry are not improved, bird flu will become

the norm rather than an exception.

 

Referring to the current outbreak of bird flu in Manipur, the Peta said it

was not unexpected. It pointed out: " Birds in the chicken industry are

crammed by the tens of thousands into dark, filthy sheds, where the ammonia

from the chickens' accumulated waste actually burns their eyes. "

 

According to Dr Vandana Shiva, modern " meat chickens " are pushed to reach

their slaughter weight in just 40-42 days and typically the supporting

structure of legs, heart and lungs fail to keep pace with the rapidly

growing body, leading to problems such as congestive heart failure.

 

For many birds, leg problems are so severe that they are unable to reach

food and water. During transportation to slaughter - which involves long

rides in all weather extremes - broken bones commonly occur. After they

arrive at abattoirs, chickens are rapidly shackled and hung by their feet

from conveyors in mechanised slaughterhouses. Many are often dumped into

scalding-hot de-feathering tanks while still conscious. At small butcher

shops, chickens have their throats slit on the floor or the butcher's block

in unhygienic conditions while other birds watch, the Peta says in its

report.

 

Life for egg-laying hens is equally miserable. Millions spend their entire

lives confined to tiny " battery " cages in huge factory warehouses which

contain as many as 1,500 to 2,000 cages, each holding six to seven birds

where they are packed together so tightly that they cannot even stretch a

wing. Nine-day-old chicks have their sensitive beaks cut off with a searing

blade in a process called debeaking. Stress and constant rubbing against the

wire cages cause hens to lose their feathers; their bodies become covered

with bruises, abrasions and boils.

 

Because of the filthy conditions that chickens raised for meat and eggs are

forced to endure, diseases, including being scalded to death in contaminated

de-feathering tanks, are rampant. According to the report, antibiotics are

routinely fed to healthy livestock and poultry to make them gain weight

faster and to compensate for unsanitary living conditions.

 

In the report, Peta has suggested that the chicken industry needs to improve

the conditions in which the birds are grown and then killed.

 

owes it to the birds it treats so inhumanely and because of whom it makes so

much money, to improve the conditions in which these birds are grown and

then killed.

 

 

 

Referring to the report of a researcher Malati Puranik, who conducted a

study on chickens sold all over Mumbai, Peta said: " We realised that poultry

sold under such unhygienic conditions is a serious health hazard. Pathogens

such as campylobacter and salmonella proliferate, causing severe bacterial

contamination. " During the evisceration process, chicken carcasses easily

become contaminated with faecal material when the intestines are cut or torn

and the contents leak out during extraction.

 

One more ominous health-related note addressed in the report is bird flu. In

2006, Indian health officials confirmed the bird flu outbreak among poultry

in the Nandurbar district. The World Health Organisation says at least 91

people in seven countries have died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu since

2003. Animal factories, such as broiler sheds and battery hen warehouses,

virtually invite the virus to strike. Because of the intensive confinement

of the animals, the deadly virus could spread like wildfire. Humans, who

handle infected birds can catch bird flu, and experts fear that the virus

will eventually mutate into a form that is transmissible from human to

human, setting off a catastrophic worldwide pandemic.

 

In the report, Peta has also suggested that the chicken industry owes it to

the birds it treats so inhumanely and because of whom it makes so much

money, to improve the conditions in which these birds are grown and then

killed.

 

 

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