Crammed into Dirty Sheds
Most chickens raised for their flesh are crammed into sheds with up to 50,000 other birds, and they may never get to see daylight or feel fresh air. Many live amid their own waste as well as other dead and dying birds, making these factory farms a breeding ground for disease.
Bred to Live in Pain
Chickens farmed for meat have been genetically selected by humans to grow unnaturally large in a short time. Their legs soon can’t support their own body weight, so they commonly sustain broken bones and suffer from crippling leg deformities, heart attacks, and breathing problems.
Killed Young
In nature, chickens can live up to eleven years, but in the meat industry, their lives are short and miserable. Supersized by the time they’re 6 weeks old, they’re stuffed into crates and loaded onto lorries for the journey to slaughter. At the abattoir, they’re gassed or electrocuted and their throats are slit.
Sky-High Death Count
Over 69 billion sensitive, intelligent chickens are killed for their flesh every year. That’s 10 times more than all the cows, pigs, turkeys, ducks, and sheep combined. Chickens are the most abused land animal on the planet.
'High-Welfare' Myth
“High-welfare” meat is a myth. Such labels are designed to reassure customers, not to protect the hundreds of thousands of animals forced to spend their short, miserable lives in squalid conditions. The following footage was taken on two UK farms that supplied Marks & Spencer, which claims to be “committed to the highest standards of animal welfare”:
Planet Earth in Peril
Humans’ appetite for flesh is devastating the planet. Because enormous numbers of chickens are being farmed, huge swathes of land must be cleared to grow crops to feed them. Brazil and other countries that are home to the Amazon rainforest are one of the main areas in which soya is grown to be exported to feed chickens raised in the UK. Chicken farms are driving deforestation, habitat loss, species extinction, pollution, and the climate crisis. You can’t call yourself an environmentalist while continuing to eat animal flesh.
Chickens Are Amazing
Chickens feel joy, friendship, and love – and even dream – just like we do. Every single one has a unique personality and values his or her life – they’re not a collection of “nuggets”, “wings”, and “drumsticks”.
What Can You Do?
- There are tasty vegan chicken alternatives galore, so please leave birds off your plate.
- Help chickens and every other animal on the planet by signing PETA’s 30-day vegan pledge.
