INTRODUCTION
The chicken industry of Alberta has been around for many years now. Over 300 farms in Alberta are dedicated purely for the production of table eggs, that is the eggs you can buy in the grocery stores. Over the past decades the general way to raise and house these laying chickens has virtually been unchanged. A recent documentary in the province of Alberta broadcasted by the TV program "W5" showed a biased view of the way the chickens are housed. This has become a large issue for many animal activists throughout the province. Due to this unfair broadcasting as well as generalization of all table egg producers, the market of eggs are in jeopardy.
DEFINITION OF THE PROBLEM
There lies a problem in all this, and it may not be quite as obvious as we think. Which is the true problem? The generalization of all farmers in Alberta? The biased TV documentary broadcasted across the province? The actual housing of the laying chickens? Could it be the animal activists creating unneeded uncertainty in the industry? Or maybe the jeopardizing of all egg producers in Alberta. Each pose a valid problem related to the main issue, and it's safe to say that all these problems are all included in the main problem. So what is the main problem one might ask? The problem has narrowed down to the general public being unhappy about how today's modern consumption eggs are produced. Is there really one solution that can fix this problem, as well as the problems within? It's hard to keep everyone happy but there are solutions.
BACKGROUND
What started this rolling ball of problems was the broadcasting of the "W5" Documentary. This basically was an undercover person who went to work for a table egg producer and took video footage of the conditions ...
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...fortable chickens, but the farmers will not need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars renovating their barns for no valid reason.
CONCLUSION
I urge all people to accept this solution recommendation in order to keep the egg industry running as it should. I ask that all would educate themselves on valid information to keep the egg industry secure and for the peace of mind for all consumers. With this simple task of being educated about the industry we can save the hard working farmers the burden of increasing regulations, making agriculture harder to sustain as a occupation.
Works Cited
"Eggs: From Hen to Home." From Hen to Home. Ed. Alberta Egg Farmers. Egg Farmers of Alberta, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
Producers, Alberta Hatching. "Who We Are." - Alberta Hatching Egg Producers. Alberta Hatching Egg Producers, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
One issue the documentary highlights is the abuse of animals and workers by the food companies, in order to reveal how the companies hide the dark side of the food world from the public. In several instances, we see animals being treated cruelly. The workers have little regard for the lives of the animals since they are going to die anyways. Chickens are grabbed and thrown into truck beds like objects, regulation chicken coups allow for no light the entire lives of the chickens, and cows are pushed around with fork lifts to take to slaughter. Many chickens are even bred to have such large breasts that their bones and organs cannot support their bodies. These chickens cannot walk and they even wheeze in pain for the cameras. The film is clearly using the unacceptable premise fallacy of appeal to emotion in this instance, because the viewer is meant to feel pity at the sight of the abused animals. This supports their conclusion, because many American’s imagine their food coming from a happy, country farm and would be horrified to know the truth.
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Chickens are one of the top most tortured animals in factory farms. Farmers get the most money for chickens that are heavier and have enlarged thighs and breasts. Like most factory farmed animals, broiler chickens are raised in overcrowded cages their entire life, and become very aggressive. Because of this aggressiveness the employees of the farms cut of their beaks and toes without any type of painkiller or an anesthetic just to keep them from fighting. After being “debeaked” some chickens are then not able to eat and starve. Layer chickens lay 90-95% of the eggs sold in the U.S. (2013b) The torture starts the day they are born. Chicks are placed on a belt, where an employee than picks up each chick to see if it is a male or female. Newborn male chicks are thrown into trash bags, ground up alive, crushed, and killed many other inhumane ways.
Chickens have to endure suffering that no living thing should have to go through. The egg laying chickens have to be forced into tiny cages without enough room to stretch their wings. Up to 8 hens are crammed in to a cage that is the size of a folded newspaper, about 11"-14". Stress from the confinement leads to severe feather loss so the chicken will be almost completely bald in the cold cages. When the chickens are of egg-laying age, there beaks are cut off without any pain killers to ease the pain, they do this so the chickens don’t break their own eggs and eat them because the chickens are hungry.
In order to determine who can potentially claim the eggs and propose damages, the following issues must be addressed:
...edia] do not tell us that chickens are the most tortured animals in factory farms and that most chickens have to stand on their own feces all day and end up getting litter burn from their manure … hens are often crammed together in cases so tiny that they do not get enough room to even lift a single wing—which then immobilizes them for their entire lives…” The animals do not even have space to move for their life. Living life only to be tortured and slaughtered alive is a really horrible thing to experience for the animals.
MacDonald, G. Jeffrey. "Chickens come home to roost in backyards around the USA." USA Today.
A manicured green field of grass blades cut to perfectly matched lengths; a blue expanse ornamented with puffy cotton clouds; an immaculately painted red barn centered exactly at the top of a hill--the chicken gazes contentedly at his picturesque world. Within an area surrounded by a shiny silver fence, he looks around at his friends: roosters pecking at a feast of grains and hens lounging on luxurious cushions of hay. As the nice man in a plaid shirt and blue jeans collects the hens’ eggs, the chicken feels an overwhelming sense of indebtedness to him for providing this idyllic lifestyle. On a day as pristine as all the others, the chicken is happily eating his lunchtime meal as the nice man carefully gathers the smooth white eggs when it notices that the man has left one behind. Strangely located at the empty end of the metal enclosure, highlighted by the bright yellow sun, the white egg appears to the chicken different from the rest.
Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 21. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Services, Livestock Slaughter. 2005 Summary, March 2006: USDA, NASS, Poultry Slaughter: 2005
I have always been drawn to chickens since I was a little girl. It was only in my thirty’s that I first came in to contact with chickens on a farm. You would think that a city girl like me would be afraid, nope, I went right in to feed and sat in chicken poop. No one told me I shouldn’t sit in the coop and feed them, but I was fine with it, they calm me. Each year I keep telling myself I will move when I can have my chickens. I will cover the difference between meat and egg layers. I will discuss the different ways to home them, and keep them safe. Why should people keep chickens at all? In this research paper I will go over the information that I have read and how I feel personally about raising and keeping chickens in your back yard.
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