Brussels, May 13 2009: Veto of animal-rights activists dismissed – law reconfirmed that 280 millions of day-old male chicks are killed every year because they are worthless to the egg industry.
Although chickens can live for more than a decade, hens raised for their eggs are exhausted, and their egg production begins to wane when they are about 2 years old. When this happens, they are slaughtered. More than 200 million “spent” hens are killed in slaughterhouses every year.
Slaughter
The lives of chickens raised for meat and eggs end with a grueling trip to the slaughterhouse. Before the terrifying journey, chickens are caught by workers and placed into crates. One reporter at a Delmarva chicken farm described the “catching” process as “a half-dozen men … grabbing [chickens] by their feet, shoving them into the drawers of 6-foot high crates. The men can catch more than 8,000 birds in an hour.” One industry study of catching practices concluded that “ the number of freshly broken bones found in live birds prior to slaughter and the number of old healed breaks found at slaughter are unacceptably high.”
Once at the slaughterhouse, the birds are dumped from their crates and hung upside-down in shackles, further injuring their legs, which are already tender and often broken. Their throats are slit open by machines, and they are immersed in scalding hot water for feather removal. They are often conscious throughout the entire process. Often, because their bones are so brittle from egg production that the electric current would cause them to shatter, hens are not even stunned before their throats are slit.
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