In Cecil’s column on cage-free chickens, he states that both free-range and caged chickens are ‘typically debeaked’.
:eek: D-d-debeaked? Does that mean what it sounds like? :eek:
(This seemed to happen to Daffy Duck a lot, but I doubt the farmers use explosives like Bugs used to do.)
Debeaked: A significant portion of the upper beak is cut off with one of these doodads:
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/electric_debeaker.html
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/debeaker_trimmer.html
And a fun picture of the process:
http://www.upc-online.org/merchandise/debeak_factsheet.html
Them’s GOOOOD eatin!
One of the rottenest jobs I’ve had (and I’ve done a few things that weren’t exactly being a male model) was debeaking chickens. Wrestlin’ the chickens, the dreadful smell as the beak burned off… yuck…
And I wasn’t even skilled enough to do the actuaul debeaking, I just handed them to the debeaker. It was then that I first realized: Good, hard, honest work really is for suckers.
I had to watch a video in a Contemporary Social Problems class that included film of this process. It’s essentially a big hot knife in a box, they hold the chickens head and slice off the majority of the beak tip. It’s an incredibly horrible process. Along with the film of the battery cages and the disposal of the male chicks… it was a rather traumatizing class.
I’m troubled by the assertions that my choice to dine regularly on my tastier fellow creatures is somehow immoral rather than a matter of taste.
Would truly “free range” chickens really live “better” or “happier” lives, subject to predation, starvation and disease, than those who have humans tending to their every need, cradle to grave, or nest to dinner plate if you will? If the studies are to be believed, with or without beaks, very few chickens choose to leave the comfort of the barnyard – or even the barn – for the dubious pleasures of “freedom” in a world where Nature is red in tooth and claw.
The point of debeaking is to keep domestic chickens from injuring each other. Would they, as a whole, be “happier” in some environment out of a prison B-movie where the strong terrorize the weak?
And I’ve heard all the arguments against “factory farms,” but have yet to hear of a different system that produces so much cheap, wholesome food for humans. Does anyone really think there was less salmonella in the days before antibiotics?
If Ma and Pa Chickenfarmer want to occupy a niche market, good for them! But I’ll shed no tears for them if they go up against Frank Perdue or Colonel Sanders and come out second best.
Please spare me the arguments that my dining choices are “immoral” because you’re traumatized by the thought of where food comes from.
What “immoral”. I’m fine on eating meat. The problem is that most people don’t have the backbone to deal with where it comes from. If one cannot handle watching how it happens, one doesn’t deserve to eat it.
Now move over, I want some flesh for dinner.
By which argument people who faint at the sight of blood don’t deserve lifesaving surgery becasue they can’t handle watching it happen. People who are agoraphobic deserve to starve to death because they can’t stand to watch almost any food ‘happening’.
An intereting and somewhat odd worldview.
No, not at all. I guess you’ve never heard of “moral responsibility”. Just HOW do you come to your conclusion? It does not follow at all. Here, I’ll spell it out for those incapable of figuring out the matter on their own:
1: Eating meat requires killing animals.
2: Those who cannot deal with the reality of these animals being killed do not have sufficient moral responsibility to hire somebody else to do the job for them.
Surgery is NOT meant to require killing the person getting surgery, believe it or not.
We presume that killing plants does not inflict pain or suffering, since plants do not undergo pain or suffering. Thus, there is no question of moral responsibility.
What is “odd” is how you managed to twist what I said around specifically to make it look “odd”.
Question asked & answered. Take it to the Pit or GD if you want to talk about carnivore ethics, please.