Posted on 08/07/2007 5:55:14 PM PDT by SJackson
Liz and Garrett Perry were dropping off scrap lumber and old shingles from a garage roofing project at the Deer Track Park landfill when they saw what appeared to be a bloody chicken darting between the big trash bearing rigs roaring through the massive dump just off of Interstate 94 near Johnson Creek.
It was a hot, windy day in May and Liz Perry remembers being eager to leave the bleak moonscape of the landfill, where debris and dump dust blew in her eyes and mouth.
"It's pretty nasty in there, with the smell and the noise and everything," Perry said. "So I just shouted, 'Garrett, we have to catch that poor chicken!'"
They jumped out of their pick-up truck, whipped off the brightly colored vests the landfill requires visitors to wear and began using the blaze yellow garments as impromptu nets to capture the frightened bird.
"Once we caught her, we realized she wasn't really bloody but just horribly sunburned because she was missing so many feathers," Perry explained. As the Perrys pulled out of Deer Track Park, Garrett asked a worker why there were live chickens in the landfill.
He was told that large egg farms dump hen carcasses and that occasionally these loads contained live chickens that apparently had survived the gassing process that was supposed to euthanize them.
"She didn't seem particularly surprised," Liz Perry said.
When Garrett asked what commonly happens to these leftover survivors, he was told they were run over by trucks.
The chicken the Perrys found was likely a hen from a load of what are known as "spent hens" sent from Creekwood Farm, a large egg farm located outside Lake Mills that regularly uses the landfill to dump its chickens. The bird they found had been de-beaked, which is common among factory birds to prevent them from pecking other chickens.
From eggs to landfills: Creekwood is one of several Wisconsin high-volume egg farms with over a million birds laying eggs every day. "Spent" hens are chickens no longer producing enough eggs to be profitable and are a regular by-product of egg farms, according to Ron Kean, a poultry expert at the University of Wisconsin-Extension.
Generally, he said, factory birds begin laying eggs at about 18 weeks and go through two egg laying cycles before their production begins to wane. Often before they are two years old, they are euthanized with carbon dioxide and the carcasses are sent to landfills like Deer Track Park.
Lynn Morgan, a spokesperson for Waste Management Company which operates Deer Track Park, confirmed that Creekwood Farm is now the landfill's only egg farm customer. She said that in 2006, Creekwood brought containers of dead chickens to the landfill during four different months and that so far in 2007 they delivered carcasses during two months.
Morgan said the carcasses are delivered in large containers similar to those commonly used at construction sites.
"It certainly would be our expectation that the loads of chicken carcasses we receive would be fully deceased," she said. "I would hope it was an isolated incident. "
Gassing is a euthanasia method approved by the Association of Veterinary Medicine Association as humane. The bodies of the spent hens are often landfilled rather than used for food or other products because processing small, thin birds like those used for producing eggs is too expensive to justify the cost, Kean said.
According to officials from the DNR and compliance officers from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, state law prohibits dumping live animals at a landfill.
The numbers of chickens dumped from big egg farms like Creekwood Farm can be large. Kean estimates as many as 100,000 hens at a time could be removed from an entire chicken shed and euthanized.
This is not only an acceptable practice but a preferred practice, according to Kean, because it means the birds' housing can be thoroughly cleaned before a fresh group of young hens is brought in.
Lee Felmlee, general manager at Creekwood Farm, owned by Esi Holding Corp., said she was shocked when she heard that chickens were not entirely euthanized when they were delivered to Deer Track Park to be landfilled.
"We have zero tolerance for this," Felmlee said.
She explained that the crew doing the euthanasia apparently did not go through a full kill process and that farm management was looking into how it happened and who was responsible.
"We're acting on it quickly so it will not happen again," she said, calling it an isolated incident.
But when a reporter delivered trash to Deer Track Park recently and asked about live chickens at the landfill, a worker confirmed what the Perrys were told. He said he had seen as many as nine live birds at a time that he thought were "wore out chickens from the egg farm."
The recovery of "Consuela May": Liz Perry was barely out of the landfill when she decided to try to save the chicken they'd found and keep it as a pet, if possible. Because she didn't know what the hen's condition actually was, her first stop was a veterinary clinic.
"I've never examined a bird so incredibly thin," Dr. Jody Bearman of Animal Holistic Care Specialists of Wisconsin in Marshall said. The bird was dehydrated, frightened and skinny, missing many feathers, but did not appear sick, Bearman said. She recommended good food and water, a quiet environment and some holistic care, such as acupuncture and herbal remedies.
Perry wanted to take her chicken home to Waterloo, but local ordinances forbid keeping chickens in the city. In Madison, however, a relatively recent ordinance allows city dwellers to keep up to four hens on their property and Perry was able to find a foster home for her bird in a quiet coop off of East Johnson Street.
Perry, who owns Nutzymutz and Crazycats, a Madison natural pet food and supply store, sees her new chicken frequently.
In less than three months, the small White Leghorn hen has grown her feathers back and gained weight. She shares her coop with another pet chicken named Cosette and lays eggs nearly every day. Perry named the rescued hen Consuela May.
"Consuela means consolation. And May is when we found her," Perry said.
Local independent filmmakers Robert Lughai and Tashai Lovington are working on a feature length documentary called Mad City Chickens that focuses on backyard chicken enthusiasts and urban chicken flocks.
It's not just a Madison phenomenon.
"Seattle, Los Angeles it's going on in cities all over, and it's growing," Lovington said. "In a lot of cases, I think people want more control over their food and some have chickens as pets instead of a parakeet."
Alicia Rheal is the president of MadCity Chickens, a loosely organized group of backyard chicken farmers.
In an e-mail she wrote, "I think I can speak for most when I say we chicken owners are anti-corporate eggs, the treatment of these animals is horrendous, the quality of eggs is poor and you just don't know what is being fed to the hens."
Standards of industry: Americans ate 256 eggs per capita in 2006, according to statistics from the American Egg Board. The vast majority of these approximately 80 billion eggs come, not surprisingly, from mass production factory farms.
Poultry specialist Kean said he has been in many large scale egg operations that he thinks are well run and comfortable.
"I've been in (chicken) houses that are very nice. But you only see the bad situations when there's some kind of problem," he said.
As for Perry, she says she is trying to learn about factory farming issues, particularly when it comes to chickens, ever since she picked up Consuela from the landfill.
"It's horrible that live chickens would be in containers with a whole bunch of dead chickens and then would run around suffering in a landfill until they die one way or another," she said.
She says she sees some of the big egg farms' routine practices as almost equally disturbing.
"These laying chickens aren't bred for anything except producing eggs, so the little male chicks have no value at all. They are killed when they are just a day old and the usual practice is to grind them up alive and turn them into mink or other animal feed," Perry said with a shudder.
The UW's Kean confirmed that this was, indeed, common, but that generally the chicks were fed into a vacuum tube that had them hit a plate before they went into the grinder so they would be stunned and unconscious prior to death. The practice is called maceration and, when administered properly, is considered humane by the standards established by the AVMA.
Perry also said that chickens at many egg factory farms are kept in what are known as battery cages, which the Humane Society of the United States calls "one of the worst factory farm abuses."
"These cages are so small that the hens can't stand fully upright or engage in activities like stretching their wings, or preening, or bathing in the dust. They are deprived of any of the normal behaviors that chickens need to do," Perry said.
In Europe, the use of battery cages for hens is being phased out, with a deadline for their complete elimination in 2012.
Another egg farm practice Perry cited as particularly harsh involves withdrawing food from the hens to force a molting period (shedding feathers) for the birds. After molting, there is a surge in egg production.
According to the United Egg Producers, 85 to 90 percent of the egg farms in America now abide by a set of scientifically developed and industry designed standards for animal welfare that discourages food withdrawal as a method to encourage molting. All standards relating to how chickens are housed and handled are at this time entirely voluntary.
Handling eggs, Creekwood Farm: After hearing of live chickens at the landfill, Barb Palecek of the Department of Natural Resources said she was immediately concerned that it sounded like a case of animal mistreatment that went beyond her jurisdiction with trash disposal issues.
Palecek contacted Deer Track Park management and alerted Cindy Partridge, a compliance officer in the animal health division of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Partridge said she sent an investigator out to Creekwood Farm the day after she heard from Palecek. "I want to make it clear that this kind of practice is not in any way acceptable, and I think the farm is taking this very seriously," Partridge said. "If they had not been responsive, we would have involved the local police as a crimes against animals case."
Dr. Yvonne Bellay, the state's humane officer, confirmed that the use of carbon dioxide gas for killing poultry is a widely accepted practice approved by the AVMA when properly administered. Bellay also said the law relating to cruelty to animals in Wisconsin is fairly broad and general.
"If people are looking for standards (regarding treatment), generally they need to look at industry standards," Bellay said.
"In general, I think there's more of an awareness of animal welfare in agriculture. The best example is the changes we're seeing in the fast food industry," she said. There seems to be increased pressure, she added, from consumers who want to believe their food was raised properly and humanely.
But she also said that people want and depend on a system that provides reliably available and inexpensive food.
This spring, the University of Wisconsin-Madison food service department and the local franchise for Bruegger's Bagels earned kudos from the Humane Society of the United States when they joined an expanding number of universities, restaurants and retailers that require that all the eggs they use come from cage-free hens.
Fran Onofrio, a spokesman for Bruegger's, said they had gotten positive comments for the change in policy, but had seen no sales increase. "We 'll keep monitoring it," Onofrio said.
Lori Nitzel, an attorney and director of the Madison-based Alliance for Animals, said she was not surprised that a live chicken was dumped in a landfill with carcasses.
"In the industry, it's not atypical. I just hadn't heard about it before in Wisconsin," she said. "Overall, these (factory) chickens are not seen as animals. They're simply a commodity, and are not treated as living beings," Nitzel said.
She noted that chickens particularly have few protections, although they make up 90 percent of animals in agriculture in the United States.
"They don't exactly invite us in, so it's really hard to lift the corporate veil to see what the conditions actually are for the birds," she said.
"Basically, if you're a chicken," Nitzel said, "you want to be born in Europe."
That was my first thought. Unless it costs more to sell chickens instead of paying to dump them, this story didn't ring true.
I don't, though the dogs would like it. And they don't get sick.
I do throw them a deer or cow leg on occasion, they enjoy that. Dogs must be dogs.
Makes sense, I cleanse my place before the new hen comes in too.
Been a long time since I ever listened to anyone discussing the problems they were having with their birds.
My understanding is that it isn’t a good idea to allow ducks and chickens to mix. I recall something about them trading parasites. Lice maybe?
Just so you know...this is a totally LEFTY paper from my neck of the woods. I wouldn’t believe 99.99% of the “horrors” they’re printing. And they like to make stuff up too, to sensationalize their stories.
Raising animals for food isn’t pretty. It’s hard work and it involves a lot of sh*t, LOL!
People do worse to one another day in and day out. Look at a Police Blotter if you can. Don’t anthropormophize animals and equate them with humans. They’re not the same by a long shot.
Don’t like meat? Don’t eat it. Upset at how eggs are produced in large quantities? Don’t eat them. But keep in mind that those of us that DO raise our own livestock can NEVER forget the bottom line when it comes to making food affordable for others. Our profit margins are very small. On average, you’re (people) consuming over 200 eggs a year. Can you produce a dozen eggs for 39 cents? Nope. Didn’t think so!
If a few male chicks need to be disposed of, so be it. What’s the difference if they step on their heads, versus shredding them within mili-seconds? Both are actually “humane.” They never know what hit them. Pulling them limb-from-limb or letting the Barn Cat torture them to death? Now THAT would be “inhumane,” IMHO.
When I get the odd, “useless feeder” Rooster in with a new batch of laying hen chicks it’s obvious he’s going to produce nothing, unless I’m keeping him for breeding purposes. So, I raise him up for a few months and then butcher him, versus killing him as a chick. I may as well cut my losses that way and provide a delicious dinner for my family, versus feeding a bird that produces nothing until he dies of Old Age, but eats (literally) into my profits in the long run.
I will admit I do have ONE Rooster, and he’s a terrific “watch dog.” He takes very good care of “his” Girls.
Other than that, they’re useless to me. That’s just a fact of Farm Life. Another fact? Hens will lay an egg every 72 hours whether they’ve been “fertilized” by a Rooster or not. So, Roosters truly ARE useless in the scheme of things as far as egg production goes unless, again, you’re doing your own breeding. :)
And if you read this article carefully...these dopes aren’t concerned with Roosters, either! All of the hippies in ‘The People’s Republik of Madistan’ want laying HENS. The city doesn’t allow Roosters anyway because they’ll wake the Yuppies up at 4am with their crowing...so why all the tears from the author over a few male chicks...that the hippies in Madistan don’t want, anyway?
They just want to be “Cool” and “Hip” and “With It” because they can raise FOUR WHOLE HENS all by them widdow selves, LOL! And guess what? When they don’t want them anymore, they drive to the outskirts where I live and just drop theses “pets” off to fend for themselves. Now how’s THAT for humane treatment? ;)
(Same with cats and dogs and pet rabbits...we’ve had them all show up at our farm, unannounced.)
There was a time you could buy roasting hens at the grocery. These were too old to fry so had to be baked.
City people never realize there is a down side to mass production of food. If they don’t like it, try raising your own eggs yourself. What do you do with the extra roosters? What do you do with spent hens? Now apply that to all agriculture and you Will see the problem.
Sounds like a good spot to dump Gitmo garbage.....
Where I grew up we had five working farms on Main Street, and ours was one of them. I never dreamed that I would some day read about treating a chicken with acupuncture and herbal remedies rather than salt and pepper.
I think I'm going to need a moment here....
If ducks and chickens are “hanging out” together, is it considered miscegenation or bestiality?
You are correct. Mixing turkeys and chickens is an even worse idea because chickens can pass blackhead to the turkeys.
A chicken is an amazingly resilient creature, it probably has something to do with them being domesticated for so long. Turkeys, on the other hand, have had the wildness and brains bred out of them and the brests bred into them for only the last century or so.
Due to the practices described here (plus their propensity to employ illegal aliens with TB), I will not buy chickens from Tyson, Purdue or any other mass production outfit. Several Amish farms in our area sell chicken commercially under sanitary, free range conditions. You can really taste the difference.
Chicken acupucture needles:
I could not agree with you more. My Dad and family raise chickens. Broilers. I would like to see these fools do the work they do. Walk through 12 chicken houses a day picking up dead chickens for just one thing. Chickens are less humane to other chickens. My Dad would cull the cripples when they were just babies. Either by waking their head aganist a two by four or stomping their head. Watched it as a child. Did me no harm. These kind of people really do get on my last nerve.
LOL! Thanks.
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