Mykisa....I'm sure your father did farm in a very humane and responsible manner. Just as my grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. Even now, my parents have recently started having chickens and cows again on their own farm. But let's face it, not everyone in this world is as kind and decent as the old country farmers we grew up knowning. I hate to say it, but I believe this. The food industry in this nation has become insane. As long as it doesn't hurt humans (or at least get cause at it), they can do almost anything they want to get more and faster production. I find this just as sick and as appaling as the majority of the people who read this. I wouldn't even watch the video because I knew it would make me sick on my stomach. In fact, as a college kid I was watching my brother's turkeys when the rest of the family went off for the weekend, one died, I went hysterical. I can bear to see animals suffer. I honestly believe whoever thought up this practice which is right out of some sold horror movie should be shut up in jail for the rest of his life and be made to care for chickens and live with them. People who can do this are really pretty sick people. A normal person couldn't perform this act. Now that this has come out in the open, any government offical that defends this I hope will never hold office again. Just remember this at election time. Finally, maybe this country needs to get back to more of the decent, kind and gentle farmers many of us know and remember. Maybe more people should be made to raise and grow their own food, then they would appreciate where their food comes from.

MyKisa..you are so right..my parents also raised chickens for years..this in another ploy by PETA...I will continue to eat chickens and eggs...No big deal.

Yeah well hopefully "Daddy" raised them in a chicken yard where they atleast were able to forage (scratch) and live a decent life while they layed their eggs or put on weight for the slaughter. And hopefully he didn't singe (cut off with a blow torch) off their beaks so they wouldn't peck each other. If your daddy was civil (didn't inflict undo harm) to his chicks, he was a fine upstanding part of American society.

I guess I am missing something...why not let the males live and use them as meat?........

I agree with you....this should not be done.

Everyday we here about people all over this world who and here in the United States who are hungry...Bet they could be given these male chicks with females and they would have eggs to eat and later - chicken.

Why can't they figure that out?? I don't understand how people can be soo stupid..

MyKisa, are you pretending the video is not real? Denial is such a great place for allowing cruelty to occur.

i worked on a chicken farm in 1981 that raised chickens in Columbia Virginia, near the James river, for Tysons. There were 25,000 chicks per chicken house, and there were four chicken houses-so 100,000 chickens per flock. It took eight weeks to bring chicks to about five pound chickens, ready for slaughter. These chickens had feeding troughs and water trays available 24 four hours a day and the lights were always on (no cages). The feed was high grade ground corn laced with arsenic to speed growth and out-of-date ground-in candy bars to fatten. (Candy has a three year shelf life) I had to walk through the chicken houses first thing every morning to cull the ones with failed tendons and crippled legs. Picking them up and one quick jerk of the neck finished them. They were put in five gallon buckets and fed to the hogs-except the ones that the resident black lab managed to sneak out of the buckets. In 1981, August was particularly brutal. There was a power outage in one of the houses. No fans. Though I walked through the houses all day, there were still 500 lost, and I had to haul them out by wheel barrow to feed to the hogs. After eight weeks, a Tyson crew came in one night and gathered the chickens, caging them and stacking the cages on trucks to take them to slaughter. We had one week to get ready for the next flock of chicks. Arsenic was kept out of the feed for three days before the end of the flock. During that one week, prepping for the next flock, the first thing that was done, was removing as much of the eight week build-up of chicken crap as possible. A front end loader was used to take the chicken crap out to huge troughs in the adjacent fields where a little more than 100 angus beef cows were being raised. The cows loved the chicken crap, as it is still 90% corn protein. Chickens don't digest corn very well. Now, those chickens that used to be culled because of failed tendons and crippled legs? They are no longer culled, and are now slaughtered for their wings. Love buffalo wings? Yeah, the crippled chickens. Oh well.

The really sad thing about this video is that they forgot to menchin that the baby chicks are high in protein and are a very usefull product...
"As a food supplament for the chicks they raise"..

(Not sure where this will appear in the list. This is for MyKisa and donna. Posts #1 and #3).

Here is a copy of a portion of the AVMA's guidlines on "euthanasia":

MACERATION
Maceration, via use of a specially designed mechanical apparatus having rotating blades or projections, causes immediate fragmentation and DEATH OF DAY-OLD poultry and EMBRYONATED EGGS. A review of the use of commercially available macerators for euthanasia of CHICKS, POULTS, and pipped eggs indicates that death by maceration in DAY-OLD POULTRY occurs immediately with minimal pain and distress. Maceration is an alternative to the use of carbon dioxide for euthanasia of DAY-OLD POULTRY. Maceration is believed to be equivalent to cervical dislocation and cranial compression as to time element, and is considered to be an acceptable means of euthanasia for newly hatched poultry by the Federation of Animal Science Societies,220 Agriculture Canada,221 World Organization for Animal Health (OIE),222 and European Union.223
Advantages—(1) Death is almost instantaneous. (2) The method is safe for workers. (3) Large numbers of animals can be killed quickly.
Disadvantages—(1) Special equipment is required.
(2) Macerated tissues may present biosecurity risks.
Recommendations—Maceration requires special equipment that must be kept in excellent working order. Chicks must be delivered to the macerator in a way and at a rate that prevents a backlog of chicks at the point of entry into the macerator and without causing injury, suffocation, or avoidable distress to the chicks before maceration.

For those that do not know, MACERATION = grinding up, CERVICAL DISLOCATION = snapping the neck, and CRANIAL DECOMPRESSION = bashing the skull in. As a Veterinarian, I disagree (as do many other Veterinarians) that these methods are "humane". They are not.

Comments: xthetruth1@aol.com

Sadly there are many problems with changing the way things are done. Big corp. handles the mass production and take these measures to be profitable and productive. It's nearly impossible to keep up with the ever growing population and demand for meat. (Also consider that egg laying chickens do no produce chicks, only eggs. You don't need a rooster to get a hen to lay eggs. So this is just a meat issue mainly.)

I can't be vegan so I do buy my meat from a co-op, all locally raised. I also go in with friends and buy the FFA and 4-H auction animals each year at the state fair. After the show they're auctioned to the public. You buy the steer or hog which is hand raised by these kids and it's sent off to slaughter for you. Anyone can do this. It made my kids waste less since they saw the live animal, helps the 4-H kids and these animals are treated like pets while alive. Usually they're aren't enough buyers so local grocery stores buy the rest. There are things you can do. Avoiding the mass produced meat is a great start.

I for one would like to know why you think it is bunk, whatever bunk means. Your daddy was not in the video and does not work for the factory shown in the video. Perhaps you work in the factory, since you are defending criticism of the practices shown in the video. Defend it all you want, but at least state a reason so we stupid people might agree or even disagree with you.

I bet that you still eat chicken and/or eggs, DON'T YOU?

This is and has been a standard industry practice, this is NOT breaking news to informed consumers. There is TONS of footage of baby chicks being shredded alive as well as TONS of pics of dumpsters filled to the brim with live baby boy chicks, left to die. You commit these atrocities by eating eggs.

Why any human would eat eggs (disgusting matter and secretions from their menstrual cycle) or chickens is beyond me.

I don't understand why you would say it is bunk. In this day and age and the economy is certainly reason enough to believe the "New farming techniques". The almighty dollar has always been the major cause of how things operate throughout history, the philosophy is either making a lot of money with little cost to the producer or get as much as you can for as little as possible for the consumer. Why would you think this practice in the hatchery is any different. I personally disagree and also horrified about this practice, but our nation believes in moving forward to change and not backwards to the past.

than your dad was one of the good people in this industry.

If I had to pay 4 to 5 dollars a pound for chicken, I would not be able to eat chicken.

No this isn't bunk, you moron. This is today's meat production. Very sad comment on humanity.

These people are no different then Hitler!
I gave up beef due to the animal abuse so now it is chicken...Don't think for one minute they won't have to answer to God when the day comes...I cried watching this then threw up... SO sad!

MAYBE YOUR DADDY DIDNT DO IT THIS WAY.......BUT THE BIG COMPANIES...PURDUE AND ALL THE OTHER KAKA COMPANIES, WHO AER ONLY CONCENRED WITH PROFITS, NOT ANIMALS RIGHTS...OR EVEN OUR HEALTH DO IT THIS WAY. IT IS TRUE.......WE ARE GETTING SICK BECUASE OF IT TOO...WITH TETRACYCLINE AND OTHER MEDS AND CHEMICALS IN THEIR BODY...SOME BIG COMPANIES EVEN FEED THE CHCICKENS GROUND OF NEWSPAPER WITH CHEMICALS AND VITAMENS ADDED