February 23, 2017 at 2:47 am

While humans do not want any harm to be caused to them they go all out to make life a living hell for other living beings of the world. Be it pets, domestic animals, fish and other marine animals and in the present case chicks. Basically humans by nature are selfish and they are the only living beings who have a mind of their own which can do wonders  but is often used  to inflict pain to other humans and also to  all other life forms. This happens in different parts of the world and includes almost majority of the countries of the world. Here the fate of male chicks is being discussed in the hatchery industry specifically. I would like to mention here specifically that there are many who eat non vegetarian food which is their right of choice and I have no axe to grind against them. But many I am sure would pause for a moment after reading this.

Male chicks are considered useless and unwanted to the egg and meat industries and hence millions of them are killed every year.. They are killed by different methods which include sexing of chicks, debeaking, grinding, drowning, crushing and suffocation and in many cases even burning.  Here are the different hell holes which these male chicks go through.

– Incubation: Problems with incubators leads to deformities. It can be in the form of protruding organs in chicks or deformed body parts.

– Sexing: Here people working in these hatcheries press down on chicks genitals in order to determine the gender as some places the anal vents are spread out to help workers determine the sex of the chicks.

– Debeaking: In this process the chicks beaks are cut off with a searing hot blade, in some other places they use machines too to cut off their beaks.

– Drowning: Many of the unwanted chicks are of no use as the companies cannot make money out of them hence they are drowned in drums. This leads to the chicks struggling for life for almost more than 20 to 30 minutes.

– Burning: In other hatcheries the process of burning chicks is used to kill. The chicks are tossed into a big fire to be burnt to ashes.

– Crushing and Suffocation: Here a number of chicks considered waste are dumped into one large drum and crushed by workers till they die a horrible death as a result of suffocation.

– Fish Food: One more such method adopted by workers is to take these chicks to a fish farm and toss them into the ponds to be eaten alive by the fish thus ending up as fish food while they are alive.

– Grinding: Here huge grinders are used as dumps where live chicks including the ones injured and others considered waste or those with prolapsed organs and others who are partially hatched are dumped in grinders and smashed and mashed.

– Grading: In this process unhealthy chicks are weeded out and the companies rejects these newly-hatched chicks as they are not a marketable food.

– Supplying Industry For Fish Food: This is one more source of revenue for the hatcheries to be made out of these chicks which are considered useless for use to supply it to humans which is served to fish as  food. In this process millions of chicks are tightly packed and transported and most do not reach the fish pond alive.

One of the solution to this as male chicks are considered a waste in this industry is to do a process called ovo-sexing technology in which the gender of the chick is determined before they hatch. This technology is a developing technology not available in the world and research is going on in this field in many nations across the globe. But the more important question is do humans who are considered wise and intelligent have to indulge in these sort of cruelty to other life forms is a profound thought which I have in my mind. While each individual thinks and eats differently in different parts of the world. I am sure cruelty is not justified by any sensible and evolved society. This is something which needs to be thought about. Dear readers hope you concur with this view.

February 25, 2017 at 4:03 pm

This only makes me think what would happen if some other predator or species existed and if it had treated humans with the same methods which these companies are adopting. It would be called violation of human rights which we all value, cherish and would want to be respected and safe guarded. But we do not know how to value life of others living beings. This shows how human mentality is.

When it comes to other life forms we feel it is ok to indulge in such acts and justify it by giving one reason or the other, our arguments to support our view never seem to end and we are able to do all this and have a free voice to express what we have in our mind.

But if we spare a thought for the other living forms. They cannot express anything. They are told as not having a mind of their own. So they do not feel pain and it is okay to kill and consume as they are meant to be bred and consumed.

I feel humans should spare a thought for them, put ourselves in their place and then maybe we would understand how life would be. This is what my take on the above topic is.