Chickens on Factory Farms

The existence of chickens on factory farms is not a novel concept. In fact, most of us know and assume that this is where most chicken comes from that we purchase at the grocery store. Keep reading to gather a better understanding of who these animals are as sentient beings and how they live on factory farms.

The Things We Love To Know

• Chickens are intelligent and good at solving problems.
• They are able to form social ladders in their groups, recognize each other, make friends, and love and care for their babies. I said love intentionally, all animals are capable and do love their families as do humans.
• Chickens have excellent memories and some studies estimate they can recognize over 100 human faces.
• Chickens have better color vision than humans!
• Chickens have the ability to sleep with one eye open, literally. This is an evolutionary adaptation to watch for predators, one half of their brain is asleep and the other is awake.
• Chickens have dreams.

Mother hens talk to their babies with soft purrs while they are still in the egg. And the babies in the eggs respond with peeps!

• They have at least 30 different vocalizations that scientists have been able to identify, and each one has a specific meaning.
• Chickens are dinosaurs!
• Chickens have almost 360-degree vision like owls.
• They like to copy each other’s behaviors.
• Mother hens will teach their babies which food to eat, how to find food, and which food is bad for them.
• Chickens run, jump, and play with each other!
• Chickens as young as two days old understand the concept of object permanence. Object permanence is the understanding that an object still exists, even when it is taken away.

The Hard Truth

• Chickens have been genetically modified to be ten times as fattening as they were a century ago. Switching from red meat to chicken most likely won’t make a difference in your cholesterol levels at all.
• Birds are exempt from “Humane Methods of Slaughter Act” which is supposed to require that animals do not feel pain before they are slaughtered. Therefore, they are shackled upside down by their feet, throats slit, and immersed in scalding hot water to remove their feathers while alive.
• More chickens are raised for slaughter than any other animal in the meat industry. This includes all the animals in the meat industry combined.
• Chickens raised for meat are called broilers, and it takes 45 days to raise a 5-pound chicken with the help of growth-promoting drugs and antibiotics. In the 1950s it took 84 days to raise a 5-pound chicken. So, they are raising the same size chicken in exactly half the time.
• The USDA says 100 years ago one serving of chicken contained 16 fat calories. Today, it contains more than 200 calories of fat and up to 23 grams of fat. Read that again: 10 times more fat than 100 years ago.
• Their bodies grow at alarming rates, but their skeletal system cannot keep up so they have mutilating leg disorders, organ issues, and CHF. <same goes for turkeys and ducks>
• It is common practice to inject chicken breasts with sodium, water, and phosphate to maximize their weights, thus effectively boosting the cost since meat is sold by the pound. They can still label them organic and/or natural. (As our animals are fattened up to be sold for more money, so our population continues to grow fatter as well.)
• 6,000 birds are shuttled together with an unacceptably high number of broken bones, hung upside down in shackles, throats slit, and dumped in scalding water to remove the feathers. Did they die when their throats were slit? Industry studies point out that no, not all of them do. They may still be conscious when scalded alive. 
• Chickens (birds) are exempted from “Humane Methods of Slaughter Act”
• E. coli, Enterococcus, and Salmonella are found in 97% of sampled raw chicken meat. This is caused by fecal contamination of the meat.
• “Chicken brands labeled as “Natural” were almost as likely on average to harbor harmful pathogens as any conventional store brand.”
• “The Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has admitted that chicken meat is filled with arsenic, a highly poisonous chemical that is four times more toxic than mercury.” Arsenic makes chickens gain weight faster without having to feed them as much, and gives their skin the pink-colored hue to the meat.
• Chickens on factory farms have a decimating impact on the environment. Wildlife habit is often destroyed to build more slaughterhouses, the slaughter of such a large number of these animals leads to air, land, and water pollution, and the waste produced by slaughterhouses leeches into the ground and affects our drinking water.
• Free-range, organic, and humanely-raised are terms devised to help people feel better about buying these chickens. However, 99.9% of chickens are raised on factory farms and spend just as much time confined than other chickens.
• “When we carefully examine the evidence, however, there is no scientific support for either of these claims-switching to chicken from beef has never been shown to reduce your risk of heart disease. In fact, more recent studies show the switch won’t improve biomarkers that predict long-term risk of cardiovascular disease.”

Switching to chicken from beef does not improve weight management.

“Men and women eating even a single ounce of chicken a day (think two chicken nuggets) had a significantly greater gain in body mass index over the fourteen-year follow-up period than those who consumed no chicken at all.” (EPIC-PANACEA study)

Check out these resources for more information.

1. 6 Shocking Reasons You Should Stop Eating Chickens Now
2. The Facts About Battery Cages
3. Science Confirms-Eating Chicken Is Not Healthier Than Eating Red Meat
4. 15 Fun Facts About Chickens
5. 25 Amazing Facts About Chickens You Probably Didn’t Know

Is there anything else you would like to know about chickens on factory farms and how they are used in the meat industry? Let me know in the comments below!

Check out my Compassionate Recipes page for delicious meal ideas that leave chicken off your plate! Seriously, try some of my tofu recipes!