Birds Do not Fly on Factory Farms

Factory Farmed Poultry

The Natural Bird

--Chickens

--Turkeys

--Ducks and Geese

The Factory Farmed Bird

--Chickens

--Turkeys

--Ducks and Geese

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The Natural Bird                                                                       Back to Top

Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese are intelligent, sentient beings who form family groups—flocks, broods, braces and gaggles—protect their young, and, in the some cases, form bonded pairs.

Chickens                                                                                   Back to Top

Chickens live in stable social groups of up to 30 birds in which they establish a hierarchy not unlike that of dogs and other animals. Because they are social animals, hens will defend their young from other hens and have been known to fight eagles and foxes to protect their family. When a hen is ready to lay eggs, she searches for a place to build her nest and have her young.

Chickens, like most birds, have sensitive beaks containing many nerve endings and use them as we use our hands—to explore their surroundings and pick up food. To keep themselves clean and free of parasites, chickens love a good dust bath. And, when day is done, they roost in low branches of trees.

When well-cared for as pets, domestic chickens live 10 to 15 years.

Turkeys                                                                                     Back to Top

Turkeys were so highly thought of by Benjamin Franklin that he wanted the turkey, not the bald eagle, to be the national symbol of the United States. He said, “The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and a true original native of America.”

Turkeys can live up to 12 years in the wild. They can run up to 25 mph and fly short distances at up to 55 mph. They, like chickens, dust bathe to clean themselves and roost on low branches of trees. Because turkeys are social animals, they like to live together in flocks. Like mother chickens, mother turkeys will defend their young against predators, such as raccoons, foxes, snakes, owls, and hawks.

Ducks and Geese                                                                       Back to Top

Ducks can live 15-20 years in the wild and geese upwards of 25 years. They both form strong family bonds and in the case of geese, mate for life. Their normal habitat is near bodies of water.

Geese display tremendous teamwork when they fly in formation. When the lead goose tires, one who is rested takes his or her place. Geese are also loyal to one another. They will stay with a loved one who may be ill or injured even to their own detriment. Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist and Nobel Prize winner, found that geese express grief. “…the eyes sink deep into their sockets, and the individual has an overall drooping experience, literally letting the head hang.”

Ducks are natural swimmers and are essentially aquatic birds who preen themselves with water to keep themselves clean. Their normal diet consists of seeds, plants, insects, and worms. Like turkeys, they can fly at about 50 mph and have been known to migrate thousands of miles.

The Factory Farmed Bird                                                         Back to Top

There is no attempt at even the barest replication of natural life for birds on a factory farm. There is no place for them to dust bathe to clean their bodies and to rid themselves of lice, dirt, and scales. There are no trees to roost in, not even space to move around as many are confined to cages or crowded into buildings the size of football fields with no exposure to the natural world and no means of escape, except by slaughter. They live in their own excrement, urine, and vomit. Aquatic birds, like ducks and geese, never see a lake or pond.

To avoid cannibalism due to the confined conditions on factory farms, all birds are debeaked, a procedure where a hot blade cuts through bone, cartilage, nerve, and soft tissue without anesthesia. In the case of ducks, only the top bill is severed. Birds have difficulty eating and drinking once their beaks have been mutilated.

The environment also suffers at these factory farms. Pollution caused by factory farming manure run-off can pollute ponds, lakes, creeks, rivers, ground water, and wells. Bacteria, for example pfisteria, can kill aquatic plant and animal life and have caused human illness and death.

There are no U.S. animal welfare laws regulating the treatment of birds during transport and slaughter as there are for other factory farmed animals.

Chickens                                                                                   Back to Top

There are approximately 300 million egg-laying hens in the United States confined in factory farms. They each lay more than 250 eggs a year, which takes a toll on their bodies causing most to either stop producing eggs or die within a year. Most egg-laying hens live no more than two years. Since male chickens are of no use to the egg-laying industry, they are tossed into grinders while alive, ground up, and sometimes fed back to the rest of the egg-laying hens. Or, they are tossed into plastic bags, suffocated, and thrown away.

Egg-laying hens are often housed in battery cages. Battery cages are typically made of wire and house anywhere from five to ten egg-laying hens, limiting the birds’ space to the size of an 8½x11” sheet of paper. Many birds cannot reach food and water, become entangled by their necks and feet in the wires, and live the entirety of their lives in these cages.

Some factory farms will tout the concept of cage-free eggs, a term loosely used to define egg production farming in which the hens are not confined to battery cages; but it does not mean they are treated humanely. Often thousands of egg-laying hens are confined in warehouse-size buildings. While cage-free is a step away from cruelty and toward more humane standards, it does not mean that hens do not suffer physical, emotional, and psychological harm. Until cage-free is more clearly defined and federally regulated, many consumers may be misled to believe that a cage-free purchase is a humane choice. The best way to ensure humane treatment of egg-laying hens is to adopt a vegetarian/vegan diet and reduce egg consumption.

Because the egg-laying hens’ environment is engineered to make hens produce more eggs than would be natural in the wild, they often suffer from cage layer fatigue, a condition where a laying hen becomes egg bound and dies when her body is too weak to pass another egg; osteoporosis, which is caused when their bodies lose more calcium to form egg shells than can be taken in from their diets; and fatty liver syndrome, a condition that occurs when a laying hen’s liver works overtime to produce fat and protein for egg yolks. When egg production declines, their cycle is manipulated through starvation, lack of water, and darkness for up to two weeks, which causes forced molting. The shock to their system brought on by forced molting often kills them. Spent hens are layers who are no longer capable of meeting production standards. They are slaughtered for their flesh, which goes into pet foods, soups, and other processed foods.

Nearly ten billion broiler chickens are raised and slaughtered every year in the United States. These male birds are raised by the thousands in giant sheds over a six-week period. Many of the birds suffer serious health problems due to their unnatural rate of growth and the intensive psychological and environmental conditions of the sheds. Typically, these chickens are genetically altered to grow twice as fast and twice as large as their wild ancestors. As a result, hundreds of millions of chickens die before reaching six weeks.

As with the misnomer cage-free, the term free-range, used to describe how broiler chickens live, simply means the chickens are not confined to cages. They may be able to range around a severely crowded warehouse, but they are not able to perform the behaviors inherent in chickens and rarely do they see the outdoors, their natural habitat. Until free-range is more clearly defined and federally regulated, many consumers may be misled to believe that a free-range purchase is a humane choice. The best way to ensure humane treatment of animals is to adopt a vegetarian/vegan diet and reduce animal consumption.

Turkeys                                                                                    Back to Top

More than a quarter billion turkeys are raised and slaughtered in the United States annually. Turkeys raised in factory farms are given less than three square feet in which to live their short lives—rarely more than a year.

Raised in such crowded conditions, turkeys engage in fighting. To avoid injury, turkeys have three of their toes cut off (detoeing) as well as their snood, the fleshy part below their upper beak, in addition to being debeaked. All of these surgeries are done immediately following hatching and with no anesthesia.

Turkeys cannot mate naturally because they are selectively bred to grow unnaturally large breasts. As a result, a factory farm employee, called a milker, must first restrain the male turkey and then physically stimulate the bird with his hands to obtain semen, which is used to artificially inseminate female turkeys. Because their breasts are so huge, they suffer from congestive heart failure, lung disease, and engorged coronary vessels. They also suffer from liver disease and heat prostration, just to name a few problems. With enlarged breasts, they are unable to run or fly. Many suffer from foot and leg ailments due to the rapid growth they undergo.

Ducks and Geese                                                                     Back to Top

Annually, more than 24 million ducks are slaughtered. They are fed diets of corn and soy—nothing that remotely resembles their natural diet. They are housed in overcrowded sheds where they are forced to live on wire mesh, causing foot and leg problems, resulting in them stumbling and falling. Those birds who have fallen will be stepped on and cannibalized if they are not able to stand upright.

Foie gras, French for “fatty liver,” is the food product that results from ducks and geese being force fed to increase the size of their livers to the point of exploding. Considered a delicacy by some, foie gras is manufactured in an inherently inhumane manner. Ducks and geese have their mouths forced open with a metal tube that is then shoved down their throats. Feed is forced into them numerous times a day through these tubes until their livers become engorged. Some birds die before they can be slaughtered at three months of age because they develop a condition known as hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease.

Take Action to Help Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks, and Geese

What can you do to change what is happening to chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese? First, stop eating these sentient, graceful animals. Selecting a vegetarian/vegan diet is the best way to eliminate the number of birds being raised for slaughter or for their products in factory farms. Other humane actions include:

• Substitute veggie and soy-based products for chicken, turkey, eggs, etc.
• Find a vegetarian group in your area and attend a meeting.
• Visit a farm sanctuary and get know the sentient creatures these birds truly are.
• Learn more about factory farming and educate others.
• Support legislation to require stricter regulation and enforcement of animal farming welfare and treatment laws.

December 2009                                                                              Back to Top