"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."
New Yorker writer Michael Specter
On his first visit to a chicken farm:
"I was almost knocked to the ground by the overpowering smell of feces and ammonia. My eyes burned and so did my lungs, and I could neither see nor breathe….There must have been thirty thousand chickens sitting silently on the floor in front of me. They didn’t move, didn’t cluck. They were almost like statues of chickens, living in nearly total darkness, and they would spend every minute of their six-week lives that way."
—Michael Specter, New Yorker, April 14, 2003.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
"Free Range" Farming
100 spent hens, rescued from a "free range" egg facility, began their lives at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary the day they were scheduled for slaughter. When educating yourself or informing others about the horrors of factory farming, please remember these faces, and please remember that "free range" farming is not a "humane" alternative. From the victim's perspective, they are exactly the same thing. ... At 18 months of age, a fraction of a chicken's life span, these hens were considered spent, unable to produce eggs at a fast enough rate, and they were scheduled for slaughter. All 100 of them bore the physical and psychological scars of an entire young life spent in the crowded confines of a sunless, windowless, ammonia-filled cement shed. Even after weeks of sanctuary life, many are still in a state of constant terror, still panicking at the drop of a leaf, still cowering at the smallest noise, as if hit by a physical blow to the body. ... Please remember their faces, and please remember that, ultimately, the value of a sentient life is not measured in its utility to others, but in its immense, irreplaceable value to the being whose life it is.
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