Video shows chicks ground up alive at egg hatchery

[Kadie]

Video shows chicks ground up alive at egg hatchery

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer Frederic J. Frommer, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago

WASHINGTON – An animal rights group is calling on the nation's largest grocery story chains to post warnings on egg cartons that unwanted male chicks are ground up alive, after videotaping the common industry practice at an Iowa egg hatchery.

In letters sent to the companies this week, Chicago-based Mercy for Animals says its undercover videotape at Hy-Line North America's hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, "exposes one of the industry's best kept secrets — that the egg industry tears male chicks' bodies apart in grinding machines while they are still alive."

The group wants the chains to include a label on egg cartons that says, "Warning: Male chicks are ground-up alive by the egg industry." The letters were sent to 50 chains, including Walmart, Whole Foods, Safeway, Harris Teeter and Trader Joe's.

"The violence that you will see is standard and acceptable within the egg industry, and consumers have a right to know about this cruelty so that they can make informed and compassionate purchasing decisions," wrote Mercy for Animals' executive director, Nathan Runkle.

A spokesman for United Egg Producers, a trade group for U.S. egg farmers, called the proposal "almost a joke." Spokesman Mitch Head said Mercy for Animals had no credible authority, as well as questionable motives. "This is a group which espouses no egg consumption by anyone — so that is clearly their motive." The video does in fact end with a call for people to adopt a vegan diet, which eliminates all animal products — meat, eggs or dairy.

snip...
The video, shot with a hidden camera and microphone by a Mercy for Animals employee who got a job at the plant in May and June, shows a Hy-Line worker sorting through a conveyor belt of chirping chicks, flipping some of them into a chute like a poker dealer flips cards.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090901/ap_on_go_ot/us_egg_hatchery_investigation_3

[BlooInBloo]

1. I was wondering how long it would take for this to get here.

[originalpckelly]

2. "Alex, I'll take heinous acts of cruelty for $2000."

"The grinding up of cute widdle fuzzy chicks."
"What is WHAT THE FUCK THEY GRIND UP BABY CHICKS JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE MALES?!?!?!?!"

[sharp_stick]

3. It's disgusting

but I'd say it's a lot faster than they way they kill full grown birds/pigs/cattle and any other thing we eat for meat.

The factory farm system that has become standard practice in this country is pathetic in and of itself.

Buy locally, buy small as much as you can and this can be at least reduced.

[superduperfarleft]

4. -1 for the so-called "animal rights" vegetarians. n/t

[moriah]

5. Would it be more cost-effective to fatten up the males as broilers? n/t

[flvegan]

7. No, they're not genetically fucked up enough to grow big/fast enough

for the industry to make any money off of them.

[FarCenter]

17. Broiler breeds are different from laying breeds

That said, the rooster chicks of laying breeds do make pretty good frying chickens.

If you started them last spring and they were free-range all summer (and the foxes and raccoons didn't get them) they would be just about ready to get their heads chopped off about now.

[moriah]

21. Or mountain lions....

... when I lived out in the Ozarks we had a flock of banties.

Then someone dropped of three Tyson refugee roosters.

That spring we had well over 100 chickens, all free-range. The banties hens hid their eggs well and apparently liked the large white birds better than the teensy tinsy roosters that dug their claws in them during mating. Sexual selection at its best, I guess. All sizes and colors. It was funny seeing a large white rooster puff its neck out like a banty.

Then we started finding signs wildlife had noticed -- carcasses of chickens disemboweled by one sharp claw. People saw the cat around -- apparently it was like an all you can eat buffet.

[flvegan]

6. Reason #2 why I won't eat eggs.

Used to be they'd toss the males into big plastic garbage bags to suffocate to death. No matter, they're not covered by the Animal Welfare Act, so who gives a shit. 200 million animals are basically "bycatch" to this industry.

Thanks, Mercy for Animals! As usual, a fine job.

[Mojorabbit]

9. They use CO2 to do it around here

One of the wildlife rehab centers I am affiliated with goes to pick up loads of them to feed the baby raptors and other animals etc that they are raising. They are not wasted.

[superduperfarleft]

12. "They are not wasted."

Wow, what an appalling thing to say.

[Mojorabbit]

20. nothing appalling about it

they are not thrown out, they are used as food for animals that need meat to grow into adults. There unfortunately is not a big market for roosters.

[superduperfarleft]

25. These are sentient creatures, not "byproducts" to be "wasted" or not.

The point of this is not to elicit horror that a perfectly good "product" is being wasted, it's to illuminate the cruelty inherent in the egg industry. You taking this as a criticism of a waste of "resources" is an incredible example of missing the point.

[arcadian]

13. flvegan, what is "bycatch"?

I think it's kind of obvious. But a better definition and examples would be appreciated.

[flvegan]

15. It's a term the fishing industry uses.

Animals that are unintentional victims of the trade. For example, swordfish longliners will oftentimes catch turtles, dolphins and even small whales on their lines. They're of no use to them, so they dump them as waste.

[Ignis]

18. The most accessible example is Dolphins caught with Tuna.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bycatch#Cetacean

[MineralMan]

8. Ah...watching sausage being made gets a companion.

Things you do not want to see regarding the food you eat. There are others, as well.

When I was in 5th grade, way back in 1955, we got to take a field trip to a slaughterhouse in Los Angeles. I don't think they do those field trips any more. About half the class barfed. I'm not sure what the point was, really.

The field trip to the local dairy was much more pleasant.

[Cronus Protagonist]

10. Grinding seems to me more human than anything else

What would be a preferable killing method?

[arcadian]

11. As opposed to Spokesman Mitch Head's position on egg consumption.

Which would be that he'd be perfectly fine with people eating eggs at every single meal in lieu of something healthier.

[NashVegas]

14. I Guess I'll Have to Ask My Local Free Range Eggs Farmer About This One

And find out what his policy is.

[FarCenter]

16. Send me your checks made out to "Rooster Rescue Ranch"

[HopeHoops]

19. Most places just toss the males into plastic bags right off the sorting line.

They just get tossed in the dumpster. If this place is grinding them up, I'm thinking they've got a McNuggets supply chain deal going.

[EndersDame]

22. Raise your Own Chickens! I have seen them in back yards of Urban areas

They are very cheap too

[renate]

23. I was glad to see this as a top Yahoo news story

I had no idea this was going on. I'm a (fish-eating) vegetarian who eats cage-free eggs on occasion. Naively, I thought that male chickens were the ones we saw on the styrofoam trays in the meat aisle... I didn't know they were treated as a literal waste product.

I went to mercyforanimals and saw the video--it is HORRIFYING.

I eat fish because the health benefits for humans are so pronounced that I feel like, evolutionarily, it's okay. That's why I eat eggs occasionally, too--they're an excellent source of protein. But this is disgusting, and I truly had (to my eternal embarrassment) no idea.

[JCMach1]

24. We all sit atop a pyramid of murder- even that fish you enjoy

is helping to collapse the fisheries around the world.