The demonstration, organized by Anonymous for Animal Rights together with Let the Animals Live, included an exhibit in which a garbage can full of "chicks" stood beside two blindfolded diners at a table, totally blind to the torture and abuse. A large speaker broadcast the desperate chirping of chicks being crushed and starved in hatcheries to the hundreds of passers-by who filled the streets during the Passover holiday.
The lives of chicks in the egg industry begin in the industrial hatcheries: Once hatched, the chicks are immediately sorted – female chicks are sent to lay eggs, and male chicks are killed (read this testimonial about the culling of male chicks in an industrial hatchery). The reason newly hatched male chicks are killed is because there's no economic incentive to raise them for meat, as those chicken breeds used in the meat industry have undergone genetic manipulations to boost their growth.
In August 2011, the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture published new draft regulations for the quick killing of chicks in hatcheries. This draft, while very incomplete and problematic, still indicates the first time the Ministry of Agriculture has acknowledged the matter, after years of evading its legal responsibility (and its undertaking to the Supreme Court) to establish such guidelines. A long time has passed since it proposed, in 2001, guidelines covering all vertebrates of all species under any circumstance. This last draft was approved by the Knesset's Education and Culture Committee, but has never gone into effect since no Minister of Agriculture has agreed to sign it to this day.
"The egg industry in Israel kills 4.5 million chicks each year," said attorney Yossi Wolfson from Let the Animals Live, who took part in the demonstration. "In some cases they are tossed into machines which crush them or grind them up alive, and as we've recently witnessed, there are cases where the chicks are tossed into garbage cans to die slowly of suffocation. Unfortunately, there is no feasible industrial egg production system which does not involve killing male chicks. The only solution is in the hands of the consumer: the less we eat eggs, the fewer chicks will be killed."
The fate of female chicks is not much better. They will spend their entire lives in battery cages (until their egg production levels drop, after about two years), in a space not larger than a shoe box, on a sloped wire-mesh floor, so that they cannot even properly stand up straight, not to mention see the light of day or feel the earth beneath their feet. Anonymous' investigative team documented many cages in which conditions are so cramped that chickens are forced to stand on top of one another.
In recent years Anonymous is fighting against the Ministry of Agriculture's plan to construct additional battery cages, at a cost of NIS 350 million. More than 30 countries worldwide have already outlawed the use of battery cages. Following Anonymous' appeal to the Supreme Court, the egg industry reform has been halted, and the Ministry of Agriculture has formulated new guidelines to address the matter through the Animal Welfare Law. The new guidelines allow the use of battery cages, and members of the Knesset's Education Committee has already refused to approve these guidelines not less than 7 times. Anonymous calls upon the Ministry of Agriculture to establish new guidelines which will prohibit the use of battery cages, and which will considerably reduce the suffering of chickens.
First published on Animal Rights This Week, vol. 563, April 2012.
Translation: Eden Chlamtac
Eating with their eyes closed, part of the exhibit. Consumers prefer not to know where the food on their plates comes from. Photos by: Alon Sherf
The lives of chicks in the egg industry begin in the industrial hatcheries: Once hatched, the chicks are immediately sorted – female chicks are sent to lay eggs, and male chicks are killed (read this testimonial about the culling of male chicks in an industrial hatchery). The reason newly hatched male chicks are killed is because there's no economic incentive to raise them for meat, as those chicken breeds used in the meat industry have undergone genetic manipulations to boost their growth.
In August 2011, the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture published new draft regulations for the quick killing of chicks in hatcheries. This draft, while very incomplete and problematic, still indicates the first time the Ministry of Agriculture has acknowledged the matter, after years of evading its legal responsibility (and its undertaking to the Supreme Court) to establish such guidelines. A long time has passed since it proposed, in 2001, guidelines covering all vertebrates of all species under any circumstance. This last draft was approved by the Knesset's Education and Culture Committee, but has never gone into effect since no Minister of Agriculture has agreed to sign it to this day.
"The egg industry in Israel kills 4.5 million chicks each year," said attorney Yossi Wolfson from Let the Animals Live, who took part in the demonstration. "In some cases they are tossed into machines which crush them or grind them up alive, and as we've recently witnessed, there are cases where the chicks are tossed into garbage cans to die slowly of suffocation. Unfortunately, there is no feasible industrial egg production system which does not involve killing male chicks. The only solution is in the hands of the consumer: the less we eat eggs, the fewer chicks will be killed."
The fate of female chicks is not much better. They will spend their entire lives in battery cages (until their egg production levels drop, after about two years), in a space not larger than a shoe box, on a sloped wire-mesh floor, so that they cannot even properly stand up straight, not to mention see the light of day or feel the earth beneath their feet. Anonymous' investigative team documented many cages in which conditions are so cramped that chickens are forced to stand on top of one another.
In recent years Anonymous is fighting against the Ministry of Agriculture's plan to construct additional battery cages, at a cost of NIS 350 million. More than 30 countries worldwide have already outlawed the use of battery cages. Following Anonymous' appeal to the Supreme Court, the egg industry reform has been halted, and the Ministry of Agriculture has formulated new guidelines to address the matter through the Animal Welfare Law. The new guidelines allow the use of battery cages, and members of the Knesset's Education Committee has already refused to approve these guidelines not less than 7 times. Anonymous calls upon the Ministry of Agriculture to establish new guidelines which will prohibit the use of battery cages, and which will considerably reduce the suffering of chickens.
First published on Animal Rights This Week, vol. 563, April 2012.
Translation: Eden Chlamtac
