If you ever wonder why I'm a vegetarian, or why animal welfare is an issue that's near and dear to me, all you need to do is read page A7 of yesterday's Star Tribune. The story, "Video highlights egg industry's practice of killing male chicks," discusses a video shot at an egg hatchery in Spencer, IA over a two-week period in May and June.
OK, so maybe male chicks don't have much of a place in a hatchery; they don't lay eggs. And maybe, just maybe, some might have to be euthanized as a result. But, what the video shows is that a common practice is to throw unwanted male chicks, alive, into a grinder. Yes, alive and into a moving grinder.
A spokesman for the United Egg Producers says that "If someone has a need for 200 million male chicks, we're happy to provide them to anyone who wants them. But we can find no market, no need." Ergo, any means of "disposal" is acceptable. Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Mercy for Animals says, "We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable?"
Our world is rife with violence and insensitivity. It is perhaps a less crude and nasty place than it was in ages past; the whole concept of vegetarianism, for example, has become both common and basically respectable. We've had our collective consciousness raised in so many different ways--for instance, even carnivores have more trouble eating veal and fois gras with enthusiasm, and if you don't think a pig roast is just a bit disgusting, the last few decades have simply passed you by. But, we have a long way to go--it's a violent world in many different ways. Just ask some 200,000,000 chicks that are shredded alive every year.
