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Mickey Z
Cool Observer
the Department of Homeland Security.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Our fine feathered friends
Study: Chickens Think About Future
(Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News)
July 14, 2005 - Chickens do not just live in the present, but can anticipate the future and demonstrate self-control, something previously attributed only to humans and other primates, according to a recent study. The finding suggests that domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus, are intelligent creatures that might worry.
“An animal with no awareness of ‘later’ may not be able to predict the end of an unpleasant experience, such as pain, rendering it (the pain) all-encompassing,” said Siobhan Abeyesinghe, lead author of the study.
To read the complete article, please click here:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050711/chicken.html
(Thanks to Pamela Rice for passing along this article: http://www.vivavegie.org)
Warning: The article appears to present yet another reason to eschew the consumption of flesh but ends like this: “Aside from animal rights issues, other research has indicated that if a bird or animal feels stress before killing, that anxiety may adversely affect the quality, taste and texture of meats.”
For more on chickens, here’s an excerpt from an old article of mine:
Inside the hatchery, each chicken is confined to about 48 to 86 square inches of space and these cages are piled tier upon tier. Due to the severe crowding, layer hens are kept in semi-darkness. The stressed birds are de-beaked using hot irons (without anesthetics) to prevent them from pecking each other to death. The wire cages rub off their feathers and the mesh floor cripples their feet. Still, production proceeds apace. In 1888, the typical hen laid 100 eggs per year. By 1998, that number was 256.
“Today’s chickens are allowed no expression of their natural urges,” says John Robbins, author of the vegan classic, Diet for a New America. “They cannot walk around, scratch the ground, build a nest, or even stretch their wings. Every instinct is frustrated.” Twenty percent of layer hens die of stress or disease. Ninety percent of all commercially sold eggs come from chickens raised on factory farms and ninety percent of those birds are infected with chicken cancer (leukosis). Those hens that survive see their egg production wane within two years and are promptly slaughtered. Under “normal” conditions, chickens may live 15-20 years.
Sue Coe: http://www.graphicwitness.org/coe/coebio.htm
Perhaps the finest illustration of what factory farming does to chickens has been presented by artist/writer Sue Coe. After her visit to a hatchery with Lorri Bauston from Farm Sanctuary, the activist organization focused on rescuing farm animals, Coe wrote about what they found:
“Around the back is a large dumpster. Lorri and I climb up to look inside. She is looking for live baby chicks. The male baby chicks are discarded as soon as they are hatched. They have no use, no value, since they cannot lay eggs. And it would cost too much to euthanize them. So they are tossed into the dumpster alive. But it is too late for us to rescue any chicks—the sun is just too hot. On the top layer of corpses, flies are eating the chicks’ eyes. Lorri keeps digging under the corpses. There are layers upon layers, some chicks still half in the shells, having broken through with their beaks. I examine a chick, so perfect with its soft yellow down and tiny wings. The chicks are thrown in with other garbage: empty Coke cans, cigarette packs, computer printouts, samples of our throwaway society. Gene Bauston, cofounder of Farm Sanctuary, told me that sometimes the baby chicks are ground up alive and thrown on the fields as fertilizer. Walking along a plowed field, you can sometimes find a chick, still alive, with no legs or wings.”
(Suggestion: Go vegan)
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