In addition to the physical suffering that chickens undergoFactory farms, they also suffer from a great misunderstanding – or rather, a total neglect – of their social, cognitive and mental capabilities. Chickens are smart, curious animals that not only feel physical pain, but also experience the fear of impending pain. Not surprisingly, social animals also feel empathy for the birds around them who are suffering. It's time we showed compassion for these birds, who live in their thousands in factory warehouses, often without access to natural light and often in severe pain, deprivation and fear.
DO CHICKENS FEEL PAIN?
While not the only premise on which a being's rights should be based, the principle that has guided rights activists for decades was inspired by Jeremy Bentham's argument: "the question is not 'can they reason?'... but ' they can suffer. ?'” The reality is that chickens can suffer both mentally and physically.
CAN THEY REASON?
Research has shown that chickens can think logicallytransitive ending. This means that chicks can derive information from their existing knowledge. An example of transitive inference is the ability to extrapolate that if element 1 is greater than element 2, and element 2 is greater than element 3, then element 1 is also greater than element 3. Psychologists have suggested that humans do not develop this ability until they are at least seven years old.
DO YOU LIKE?
Exhibiting chickenspainin much the same way as other animals, that is, both physiologically and behaviorally. On egg farms, the suffering begins from day one, when male chicks that cannot lay eggs are gassed, crushed or ground alive. Females have their beak tips cut off, which can cause severe pain throughout their lives, causing some to starve to death. Survivors can suffer broken bones and other injuries and illnesses that are never treated. Chickens raised for meat, commonly called "broilers," suffer from a number of health problems related to the unnatural growth rate forced on them, including joint occlusion and heart disease. There is no doubt that these poor birds are suffering.
DO CHICKENS GET PAIN WHEN THEY LAY EGGS?
Chickens that are not selectively bred by agriculture lay an average of 20 eggs per year. In contrast, chickens genetically engineered for economic gain produce 320 or more eggs per year. Not only has the industry forced birds to lay many more eggs – leaching calcium from their bones, making osteoporosis more likely – but they have also been forced to lay eggs that are too large to be laid safely. The size of the eggs pushes the chickens' bodies to the breaking point and often results in fractures at the top of the coccyx. This emerged from a study among chickens in Denmark85 percent of the chickenshave a broken coccyx regardless of whether they were caged, kept in a shed or in the free range.
DO CHICKENS FEEL PAIN DURING SLAUGHTER?
During slaughter, the chickens are hung upside down by their legs - which could already be broken - and dragged through electrified water in an attempt to stun them and make them insensitive to pain. It doesn't always work, and the process itself can cause immense pain and anxiety. The birds that are not stunned go to the knife fully conscious. No attempt is made to stunning in around 10 per cent of birds slaughtered in Britain. Millions of people have their throats slit even though they are fully aware that this is happening.
DO CHICKENS FEEL EACH OTHER'S PAIN?
They do. Chickens experience something called empathyemotional contagion, which is the tendency to feel the emotions experienced by others around them. An example of this is when chickens see that their chicks are in distress, their blood pressure rises and they themselves become concerned. Chickens are very empathetic creatures.
How can you tell if a chicken is in pain?
Pain can be indicated with a numberdifferent characters. On farms, the most obvious signs are that the birds slump with their legs spread, indicating that they are suffering from joint pain or broken bones. Other birds may lie down, their eyes tightly closed, their breathing heavy and labored, or they may be shivering. Their pain is very similar to our pain.
This is what we discovered when we took Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch to a quintessential British chicken farm.
FIVE INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT CHICKENS
Chickens are curious, active and courageous animals, always willing to explore and finding great comfort in the company of their flock mates. Just like humans, they all have distinct personalities, and some are bolder and more gregarious, while others are quieter and shyer.
DO CHICKENS FEEL FEAR?
Chickens can feel fear. In fact, they experience many of the same physical thingsanswerare afraid that we do. Their heart rate speeds up and their body temperature rises. If restrained, they may also become limp and unresponsive.
DO CHICKENS FEEL EMOTIONS?
There is some evidence that chickens do not feel aloneemotionsbut that their feelings can be complex. Thisincludesboth positive emotions, such as excitement for a treat, and negative emotions, such as anxious anticipation of an unpleasant experience.
Look how these chickens enjoy human hugs...
ARE CHICKENS SMART?
Naturally,they are smart!Chickens have language and use it for complex reasons, including to warn another chicken that some type of danger is near, even if the other chicken has not seen or otherwise sensed the danger itself. They also make conscious decisions to share or withhold information based on who is listening. A rooster may crow a warning if a hen is nearby, but remain silent if the other bird is a competing rooster!
Chickens have that toonumericalskills similar to those of chimpanzees and bottlenose dolphins. They can distinguish between a smaller quantity and a larger quantity, and they can mentally order quantities from smallest to largest. Chickens can count too. When a number of balls are shown behind a screen and having to watch when a certain number is removed and placed behind another screen, chicks can consistently identify which screen contained the most balls. To do this, they must mentally subtract the removed balls from the total and determine which screen had the largest number at the end of the exercise.
DO CHICKENS GET SAD WHEN YOU TAKE THEIR EGGS?
Before chickens lay eggs, they experience a surge of hormones. If these hormones are maintained after laying, the birds become "broody" and sit devotedly on their eggs until they hatch. They do this even if the eggs are not fertilized, because chickens are natural mothers. Not every chicken hatches after every egg she lays. But in the cages commonly used by the British egg industry, chickens are never given a choice. The eggs just roll away and the chickens can do nothing but watch them go.
DO CHICKENS RECOGNIZE THEIR “OWNERS”?
Of course they do! Chickens can even recognize and distinguish 100 different human faces. Chickens have also been shown to prefer moresymmetrical faces, as demonstrated by a group of Swedish scientists. Interestingly enough, this is a trait shared among humans.
CONCLUSION
The reality is that each of the more thanslaughtered a billion chickensbecause food in Britain has the capacity to cause physical and emotional suffering every year. These birds deserve so much better. We can all contribute to ending their suffering, and all we have to do is make small changes in what we eat. Usmissionat VFC is to inspire people to choose compassionate, vegan alternatives.
