Ever since Jan. 7, when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched a worldwide campaign to end the extreme cruelty to chickens killed for KFC restaurants, we’ve been inundated with questions: “Why bother? They’re just chickens,” and “What difference will it make? They’re going to die anyway.”
These are undoubtedly the kinds of questions that people in Asia – where dogs and cats are raised for human consumption — ask when others demand that they, at the very least, give the animals a more humane life and a less painful death. Although most of us simply don’t know chickens as well as we know dogs and cats, these birds do show affection and feel happiness, loneliness, fear and pain, just like the pup curled up on the end of your bed. They are social, intelligent and, according to Chris Evans, who studies animal behavior and communication at Macquarie University in Australia, have cognitive abilities “beyond the capacity of small children.”
In their natural surroundings, chickens are busy animals who spend their day foraging for food, making nests, roosting in trees and taking sun and dust baths. Friends of mine who keep them as companion animals tell me they are curious about household activity and enjoy sitting in the living room with the family each evening, listening to music.
But the 736 million chickens killed for KFC are crammed by the tens of thousands into sheds that stink of ammonia fumes from accumulated waste. They are given barely even room to move – each bird lives in the amount of space equivalent to a standard sheet of paper. They routinely suffer broken bones from being bred to be top heavy, from callous handling when workers roughly grab birds by their legs and stuff them into crates and from being shackled upside down at slaughterhouses.
By the time they’re old enough for slaughter, their bodies are so fragile that their bones snap when they are grabbed and stuffed in crates for transport. During slaughter, their throats are cut and they are often dumped in a tank of scalding water while still fully conscious.
However one feels about eating meat, decent people will agree that, at a minimum, animals should not be grossly mistreated. PETA is asking KFC to replace its current chicken-killing methods with humane death by gas; to use mechanized chicken catching, which causes less bruising and fewer broken bones; and to include sheltered areas and perches in chicken houses to improve the birds’ living space.
For nearly two years, KFC executives have been assuring PETA that the welfare of the chickens is of great concern. But so far they have done nothing. Of course, the best way to help animals at KFC is to go vegetarian, but if consumers can persuade KFC to take these simple steps it would mean a world of difference to the animals.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Heather Moore writes for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front Street, Norfolk, Va. 23510; Web site: www.PETA.org.