PUNE: Highlighting the cruel practices adopted in chicken production, Animal Equality, a Pune-based animal protection organization, has said that the practices violate the most basic animal welfare and food safety standards.
Animal Equality studied several chicken farms in Maharashtra, Delhi and Haryana between December 2016 and June 2017, and recently published the findings. The study covered the entire chicken production cycle — right from the day chicks are hatched, till the meat is processed.
Amruta Ubale, the executive director of Animal Equality, said, "Day-old chicks are roughly handled, stuffed into boxes and their beaks are mutilated with hot blades without anaesthesia. Their journey to the farms lasts hours, and sometimes days. All this without food or water. The weaker chicks are discarded, and left to die a slow agonizing death."
Hens are also put through "forced molting."
"Though this practice is illegal as per the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and the orders of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), it is practised. It deprives egg-laying hens of food to stimulate additional cycles of egg production. Food could be withheld for up to 14 days, and they are also deprived of water for 1-2 days," she said.
According to the report, many chicks and hens fall ill and die of starvation, others die of heart attacks or respiratory infections. "Once they reach their maximum weight, they are crammed into transport trucks in large numbers. They are sent on rigorous journeys without food or water. At the meat market, their throats are slit and hens are thrown into drain bins, where they languish in pain for several minutes before they die," said Ubale.
The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughter House) Rules, 2001, states that animals have to be stunned before slaughter. However, this is never practised.
No comments:
Post a Comment