Karen Davis wrote a letter to the executive producer of NPR's Living
on Earth which did the report on Germany's banning of battery cages.
Please write write a short thank you letter and request that Living
on Earth do a similar report on the condition of battery-caged hens
in the U.S.
23 April 2002
Karen Davis, PhD
President
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
12325 Seaside Road, PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405
Mr. Steve Curwood
Executive Producer
Living on Earth
8 Story Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-4956
Letters@loe.org
Dear Mr. Curwood:
Thank you very much for your excellent show of April 19, on which you
aired a report on Germany's decision to ban all cages for laying hens by
2012. The condition of battery-caged hens described by the EU Scientific
Veterinary Committee-feather pecking, heart attacks, broken bones,
diseases, and more-can be found in any laying hen facility picked at
random in the United States. Our country has no federal welfare laws to
protect hens used for egg production.
In recent years up to the present, conditions have been documented in
Colorado (Boulder Valley Poultry Farms), Ohio (Buckeye and Daylay),
Minnesota (Michael Foods), Maryland (ISE-America), Florida and Georgia
(Cypress Foods in both states) showing hens' eyes sealed shut with
oozing infections, beak tumors the size of balloons, severely injured
feet, rats, flies, filth, and abject misery. Every covert investigation
has found hens with their wings, heads, and legs trapped helplessly
between cage wires next to the rotting corpses and skeletons of hens who
died as these hens will die. The toxic excretory ammonia fumes from the
manure pits beneath the tiered cages are a primary cause of chronic
respiratory disease and immune system dysfunction in battery-caged hens.
Hens in the United States are subjected to a cruel food deprivation
procedure, lasting from 4 to 21 days, known as forced molting. Forced
molting is illegal in Europe. Forced molting has been scientifically
linked to Salmonella enteritidis infection in hens and their eggs,
because starvation breaks down the hens' immune systems, as well as
driving them to consume each others' Salmonella-contaminated feathers in
order to obtain nutrients.
It is thus necessary to understand that hen pecking in confinement is
not necessarily, or in most cases, an attack, and that the debeaking of
hens (often down to the nub) is a cruel and painful mutilation that is
done to accommodate the inappropriate way in which these birds are
forced to live. If some hens peck at each other when given a few more
inches of cage space, this is because there is nothing for them to act
upon in that "extra space" but each other. It's pathetic, for example,
that in needing to dustbathe (practice bodily hygiene) and having no
dustbathing material (earth, sand, or similar loose-particle substance),
caged hens are driven to "rake in" each others' feathers. Such behavior
is not an act of aggression or "cannibalism," but the hen's distorted
effort to clean her body and maintain her plumage-hopeless under
circumstances in which plumage and skin are worn away by the constant
rubbing against wires and cagemates. Chickens have a genetic need to
dustbathe, just as they have a genetic need to peck. These behaviors
make sense in an environment suited to their nature and needs. Cage
systems, however, are inimical to the nature and needs of hens. As Dr.
Lesley Rogers writes in her book The Development of Brain and Behaviour
in the Chicken (1995), "In no way can these living conditions meet the
demands of a complex nervous system designed to form a multitude of
memories and to make complex decisions" (p. 218).
It would be splendid if you would do a much-needed segment on the
condition of battery-caged hens in the United States. United Poultry
Concerns will gladly provide you with information, including video
documentation of battery-hen facilities in this country. I am enclosing
a copy of my book, Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at
the Modern Poultry Industry, along with a VHS copy of the 2002
undercover video of the two largest egg farms in Ohio, Buckeye and
Daylay, entitled Silent Suffering.
Thank you very much again for your strong and informative report on
Germany's decision to ban battery cages for hens by 2012. In presenting
this report you have educated thousands of people about the unnecessary
and unjust suffering of millions of hens and the need to eliminate cages
for hens, not only in Germany, but in the United States and everywhere.
We are extremely grateful for your presentation, and we commend you for
it.
Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information at
757-678-7875.
Sincerely,
Karen Davis, PhD
President
Karen Davis is the President of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit
organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment
of domestic fowl. She is the author of several books including
Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern
Poultry Industry (Book Publishing Company, 1996) and More Than a
Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Lantern
Books, 2001).
4/21/2002: DawnWatch: NPR's Living on Earth covers Germany's ban on cages for hens
(external link)
United Poultry Concerns. April 23, 2002
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org
(Action Alert - Letter to Living on Earth Re: Show on Germany Battery Cage Ban)
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