A Chicken’s Life
Hi. My name is Cluckwarya, and I wanted to ask all you nice folks out there to mark Vegetarian Awareness Month (October) by giving little chicks like me a break by going meat-free. Here’s why:
This was a terrible summer for me and millions of chickens just like me. When I was hatched, my mother was nowhere in sight, because on factory farms these days, they hatch all us chicks in incubators.
Because male chickens don’t produce eggs, they threw my brothers in the garbage, where they died.
Next, they cut off our beaks, which was very painful.
After that, they jam-packed so many of us into cages that we couldn’t even stretch a wing, and every day they came around and took our eggs.
When my egg production starts to drop off, they’re going to take me to a slaughterhouse, and I’ll probably be made into soup. Many of us will be dunked into tanks of scalding hot water while we’re still alive!
My cousins, who are bred for their flesh, are taken and packed into dark, filthy sheds. In fact, a PETA investigation at one KFC supplier documented young birds packed so tightly together that they had to push each other out of the way to reach food.
Dead chickens were left to rot among the living.
And factory farms breed and drug the birds to grow so large that some can’t even walk!
Just like us, they’ll be hung upside down in shackles, and many of them will be scalded alive. Now you know why we chicks just love vegetarians.
Still need some convincing? No problem. Vegetarians are less prone to some of India’s biggest health problems, including heart disease and cancer. And they live longer. Vegans and vegetarians also keep Mother Earth healthier because raising animals for food is a leading cause of water pollution, land degradation and the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. One more thing: If the grains and other foods now being fed to us chicks and all the animals raised for food were instead used to feed humans, we could conquer world hunger.
There you have it. Why not help out all us cute little chicks and do your body a big favour at the same time – go vegan!
