Video shows chicks ground up alive at egg hatchery

Source: AP

DES MOINES, Iowa – An animal rights group publicized a video Tuesday showing unwanted chicks being tossed alive into a grinder at an Iowa plant and accused egg hatcheries of being "perhaps the cruelest industry" in the world.

The undercover video was shot by Chicago-based Mercy for Animals at a hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. The video was first obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable?" asked Nathan Runkle, the group's executive director, at a news conference in Des Moines. "I don't think that most people would."

The group said that tossing male chicks, which have little value because they can't lay eggs or be raised quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat, into grinders is common industry practice. United Egg Producers, a trade group for U.S. egg farmers, confirmed that.

~snip~

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

The more we hear about how our meat industry treats animals the better IMHO.

How sad. Might be worth considering not eating eggs.

The ones who are debeaked, crammed into a crate the size of a sheet of paper with at least 3-4 other chickens, have their bodies and cycles manipulated for maximum production, etc.?

Now you know.

Source: AP

DES MOINES, Iowa – An animal rights group publicized a video Tuesday showing unwanted chicks being tossed alive into a grinder at an Iowa plant and accused egg hatcheries of being "perhaps the cruelest industry" in the world.

The undercover video was shot by Chicago-based Mercy for Animals at a hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. The video was first obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable?" asked Nathan Runkle, the group's executive director, at a news conference in Des Moines. "I don't think that most people would."

The group said that tossing male chicks, which have little value because they can't lay eggs or be raised quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat, into grinders is common industry practice. United Egg Producers, a trade group for U.S. egg farmers, confirmed that.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090901/ap_on_go_ot/us_egg_hatchery_investigation_9

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:-(

I cannot watch but I know it is important for this to be brought to our attention and something must be done.

Heavens, no.

:cry:

recommended.

I wasn't happy when I heard that the egg producers agree that this is a humane
and standard practice.

That called it "euthanizing".

Putting an animal in a grinder is now euthanasia?

There are people out there that seem to have no trouble with it

Sick, twisted, demented people

I asked for suggestions for a reasonable alternative. That makes me sick, twisted, demented? A lot of ARists get worked up about shit but have little to offer as alternatives other than a no animal use agenda.

Sure the thought of tossing chicks in a grinder sounds horrific. Is it really? I don't know, I never studied how fast or effective it is.

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/hatchery/">Mercy for animals

Well made video, but graphic and blunt

I mean besides everybody going vegan. Obviously one solution would be some way to breed for only females but I don't think they have found that yet or the hatcheries would probably already be doing it to save time and money on what must be about a 50% loss of hatch. Of course I expect the "waste" is used as feed or fertilizer.

Or did you miss that?

and i'm SICK of the fuzzy, cute crusadists -- i want humane, liveable treatament for all animals -- EVEN IF i'm a meat eater.

i want all animales teated ethicallly humanely -- any way you can think of that enhances any animal == just like it would want for myself.

After he showed how they determine the sex of baby chicke by squeezing them until their cloaca is partly everted.

So somebody make a suggestion for how else these male chicks should be euthanized, because I am NOT going to give up chicken OR eggs for you people. It ain't gonna happen.

Personally, if I had to choose a way to die, dropping into a grinder head-first sounds like a pretty quick way to go, as long as it's about 1000 horsepower and spinning at the speed of sound.

The word "grinder" evokes a slow and cruel death. Apparently, it's a very fast grinder, perhaps something akin to a very large blender. I'm sorry, but chopping my head in half instantaneously seems like a good way to go, to me. Maybe I'm just weird. If I get terminally ill and decide to check out, I don't want to slowly suffocate by taking narcotics and putting a bag over my head. I don't want to jump off a building and make a big scene, wondering what the hell I'm doing on the way down. I don't want to jump off a bridge and worry that I might simply break every bone in my body, nearly drown, only to be rescued. I don't want to shoot myself and wonder if I'm going to wake up in a hospital with half my brain missing, a huge hole in my face, and not enough sense left to try it again.

I do NOT want to fail.

Giant instantaneous grinder? Sounds great. Better than fire. Better than water. Better than gas, which is a hazard to everyone around you unless you can hire Jack Kevorkian. Better than guns, which leave a terrible mess for someone to clean up, or jumping, which does the same.

Unless one of you has a better idea for these chicks, I'm calling this whole thread full of comments what I think it is. Hysteria. Male chicks gotta die so we can eat chicken.

AND YOU ARE NOT TAKING AWAY MY CHICKEN. I loves me my chicken. Even if 200 million male chicks have to instantaneously sputter out so I can have my thighs.

snark.