PROTESTING FOWL TREATMENT OF CHICKENS
Caged vegans urges consumers to boycott eggs
Seattle, WA – On the eve of Easter naked “chicks” will be crammed into a cage asking people to give a cluck about the cruel conditions of modern egg farms by boycotting real eggs and using plastic eggs instead.
Date: Saturday, April 14th
Time: 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Place: Westlake Park (Fourth Avenue & Pine Street)
Members of
Action for Animals are in a flap over the cruel treatment of chickens for eggs. As people decorate Easter Eggs they rarely think about the horrific conditions endured by egg-laying hens. Each Easter Egg represents 32 hours of pain and misery for a chicken in a factory farm. On factory farms, laying hens are housed in intensive confinement buildings where up to 100,000 birds are crammed into a single warehouse in stacked rows of bare wire cells called “battery cages.” Four to six laying hens are crowded into each cage with the floor space the size of a folded newspaper. Unable to walk, roost, or even stretch their wings, the hen’s feet often grow directly around the bare wire of their cages. Since only female chicks are useful to the egg industry, the chicks are “sexed” and the males are tossed live into a grinding machine, killed with carbon monoxide, or thrown live into the trash to suffocate. Egg layers, including most so called “free-range” birds, have their beaks seared off with a hot knife to prevent damage from the fighting that occurs due to the intense confinement conditions. Finally, after 18 months and about 400 eggs, all hens - including so called “free-range” layers - are crammed into trucks and sent to slaughter.
“Chickens are suffering just so we can paint their eggs for Easter,” says AFA Director Dave Bemel. “Jesus was the Prince of Peace, how better to celebrate his resurrection than by extending mercy and compassion toward all of God’s creatures.”
