Sporns Cooped Up Like Overcrowded Chicken Farm!

[makapaaa]

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Overcrowding leads chickens to disregard pecking order and become aggressive
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><DIV class=story_text><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Wednesday's report, 'Fed pricey herb, to strains of Mozart'.
Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) commends the farm owner's attempt to create a less stressful atmosphere for the chickens. However, we wish to highlight that the environment in which the chickens are housed still appears far from ideal.
From the photograph, it is clear that there is significant overcrowding. This is incredibly stressful for chickens. In the wild, chicken flocks have hierarchical systems and a strict 'pecking order', with some birds dominant over others. However, this only works for flocks of up to 90 individuals. Studies have shown that in groups any larger than this, the pecking order breaks down, resulting in extreme aggression.
Furthermore, chickens become agitated if they cannot act on their natural instincts. In the wild, they feed by scratching in the earth for worms and insects. They enjoy stretching their wings, basking in the sun and having dirt baths. They like to roost in lower branches of trees. These are natural needs of chickens, stemming from their forest bird ancestors.
On today's modern farms, all this is usually taken away from them. The chickens even have no choice over what they eat, fed an unnatural concoction of food. They will probably never see daylight, until the day they are taken to slaughter.
It is revealing that Mr Kwek Theng Swee mentions that the music calms the birds, acknowledging that conditions on the farm can be stressful. Indeed, considering the evidence above, the chickens are clearly in a highly stressful and unnatural environment.
Sadly, overcrowded, unnatural conditions are the norm on today's intensive factory farms, where animals are no longer treated as sentient beings, but more as meat, egg and milk 'machines'.
But it does not have to be this way, and more humane methods of farming are possible. For example, some farms in Brazil and China are participating in the Model Farm Project. This aims to establish an international network of viable and sustainable model farms, where the welfare of the animals is given high consideration.
Ultimately, it is high demand for cheap animal products that fuels the intensive farming of animals. Therefore, the responsibility falls on us as consumers to demand more humane methods of farming, if we wish to reduce the animals' suffering. We can do this by buying only free-range meat and eggs, and writing to supermarkets to request such products.
Consumers may also consider reducing their meat consumption, so the need to raise farm animals so intensively is reduced.
Acres hopes that farms in the region will move towards adopting farming methods which are more humane, such as those of the Model Farm Project, and that consumers will use their purchasing power to help reduce the suffering of farm animals.
Amy Corrigan (Ms)
Director, Cruelty-Free Living
Acres

<!-- end of for each --><!-- Current Ratings : start --><!-- Current Ratings : end --><!-- vbbintegration : start --><DIV class=vclear><!---vbbTime (Thread ID: 24487) - Start : Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:34:45:168---><SCRIPT language=javascript>function readCookieVbb() { var errorString = getURLParam("error"); user=getCookie("HTTP_user_id") luser="" if (user!=null) { luser=user.toLowerCase() if (luser == "anonymous" || luser == "anonymous|anonymous") { window.location= p_logoutLink; } } if(user != null && user !=0 && luser!=null && luser != "anonymous" && luser != "anonymous|anonymous") { document.writeln("<table border='0' width='100%' cellspacing='0' id='story_comments' style='display:none'>") document.writeln("<tr id='comments_body' style='display:none'><td colspan='2'>") document.writeln("<table border='0' width='100%' cellspacing='0'>") document.writeln(" <tr ><td class='heading'>Latest comments</td></tr>") document.writeln(" <tr><td id='messageDisplayRegion' width='100%'></td></tr>") document.writeln(" <tr><td align='right'>&raquo; Offensive? Unsuitable? Report comment
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</TD></TR><TR><TD style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" align=left>Posted by: skinners at Fri Sep 11 10:42:14 SGT 2009
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[makapaaa]

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Doing good to animals is great, but isn't it better that we first do them no harm?
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->WEDNESDAY'S report, 'Fed pricey herb, to strains of Mozart', is ironic.
No amount of air-conditioning, pricey herb feeds, mood lighting and Mozart can compensate for the pain and suffering a chicken, or any animal for that matter, undergoes before it is slaughtered.
The plight of chickens which are bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being eventually slaughtered, begins from as early as when they are chicks. They have to be de-beaked and have their wings clipped - to prevent them inflicting injury on their fellow chickens.
Chickens bred in factory farms suffer cramped living conditions and endemic diseases. They are given powerful cocktails of steroids and antibiotics engineered to accelerate growth, to shorten their lives and hasten their harvest.
While the antibiotics suppress disease among the animals, their use leads to the emergence of newer and more powerful strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria which are, more than ever, able to transcend animal-human borders.
Feeds fortified by Cordyceps and cultured lactobacillus underscore the inefficiencies of meat sources of food.
A lifetime of fortified fowl feed - anywhere from four to nine months - translates to only a few days of human meals without any assurance that such fowl feed fortification passes on greater nutrition down the food chain.
If such nutrients can withstand the rigours of slaughter and cooking, just imagine the avian virus and other contaminants that must be surviving the transition equally well.
Expending land, water, nutrients and energy for lighting and music on animals means less of such limited resources are available for man's own benefit.
Why not deploy these directly for mankind instead, to optimise them while reducing methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and waste by-products which poison water supplies and necessitate expensive treatment plants?
Doing good to animals is great. Isn't it better that we first do them no harm?
Vijay Kumar Rai