Are chickens killed humanely? How are chickens killed?

Are chickens humanely slaughtered?

Chickens face a grisly end to their short and unnatural lives on industrial farms. After a stressful journey to the slaughterhouse trapped in cramped crates, workers remove the birds and shackle them upside down by their feet during a process known as live-shackle slaughter. Many birds flap their wings in terror and endure broken bones and other injuries in this process.

The birds move along an automated line and are then immersed in a pool of electrified water, intended to leave them unconscious. However, the electrical charge is not always reliable at stunning birds—meaning that many birds suffer through the slaughter process while fully conscious. Shortly thereafter, a sharp blade slits their throats to allow them to bleed out.

Finally, the chickens' bodies are submerged in a vat of boiling water to loosen the feathers from their skin before a defeathering machine plucks them entirely. If a chicken is not adequately stunned or bled out before entering the scalding tank, she will spend her final moments boiling alive. The USDA estimates that over half a million birds drown in scalding tanks per year in the US—that number represents thousands of birds who die in the most violent way possible every week.

Since poultry are excluded from the Humane Slaughter Act, virtually no legislation ensures the humane slaughter of chickens.

How are chickens killed in a slaughterhouse?

The most common method of slaughter for chickens is known as live-shackle slaughter. In this method, an electrical water bath stuns the bird, then a sharp blade slits their throat. Investigations reveal that many birds are not properly stunned when slaughtered, indicating that they experience the full pain of their gruesome death.

In Europe, Controlled Atmospheric Stunning (CAS) is becoming a more prevalent method of slaughter. This approach involves gassing the birds into unconsciousness before they are shackled upside down, slit by the throats, and scalded. Unlike live-shackle slaughter, CAS entails stunning birds before they are shackled, eliminating the risk that they will experience the pain and fear of slaughter while fully conscious. For these reasons, CAS is a far more humane method and is a much less stressful experience for birds.

Do chickens know they are going to be slaughtered?

Chickens are complex social and emotional beings. The scientific consensus is that the birds we use for food can think and feel. Recent findings indicate that chickens are not the simple-minded creatures we once thought them to be. According to Scientific American:

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"Scientists have learned that this bird can be deceptive and cunning, that it possesses communication skills on par with those of some primates and that it uses sophisticated signals to convey its intentions. When making decisions, the chicken takes into account its own prior experience and knowledge surrounding the situation. It can solve complex problems and empathizes with individuals that are in danger."

We cannot know for sure if chickens are aware they are going to be slaughtered, but we can be certain that they experience fear and pain as they are shackled upside down and surrounded by the smell of death.

Are chickens slaughtered while conscious?

Slaughterhouses intend to stun birds with an electrified water bath before their untimely death, but all too often, this system does not work as planned. Many birds are not properly stunned and suffer the excruciating pain of slaughter while fully conscious. New evidence reveals that the stunning method used by the poultry industry does not consistently render birds unconscious.

Researchers have found that waterbaths with lower electrical frequencies are more effective at stunning birds, but can sometimes result in damaged carcasses unsuitable for saleable meat. These lower-frequency shocks can induce spasms that result in fractured limbs and ruptured blood vessels during the stunning process, which reduce the bird's economic value to the industry. Researchers believe that, despite these injuries, lower frequency waterbaths reduce the overall suffering of birds during the slaughter process because they are more likely to successfully stun the birds. However, a majority of slaughter facilities still opt for less effective stunning methods due to concerns about meat quality.

Because the poultry industry values profit over welfare, countless birds used for their flesh suffer a grisly death while fully conscious.

What is life like for chickens on a factory farm?

Estimates suggest that 99% of all birds raised for food spend their lives trapped in factory farms. Broiler chickens—the industry term for birds raised for meat—suffer through torturous living conditions every day of their short lives.

The vast majority of chickens raised for food are born in industrial hatcheries, surrounded by bright lights and machines. Most baby birds never meet their mothers—the industry separates unhatched chicks from mother hens long before they are born. Soon after hatching, these birds are packed into cramped crates and shipped to factory farms.

Once at the factory farm, the chickens suffer extreme stress from overcrowding. Sometimes hundreds of thousands of birds are kept in a single shed. The birds endure filthy living conditions, surrounded by their own waste. These dirty, crowded environments are notorious for breeding and spreading zoonotic disease, such as bird flu, which threaten the well-being of humans and chickens alike.

The meat industry breeds chickens to grow at an unnatural rate in order to yield the biggest profits. This high speed of growth often results in painful health problems, including skeletal disorders, skin burns, lesions of the foot pad, and heart attacks. These birds are bred to grow so fast that their legs often lack the strength to carry their heavy bodies. Some struggle to even walk or stand.

Most chickens are sent to slaughter at less than two months old. Despite their large size, they're ultimately still babies at the time of their death.

How are factory farmed chickens killed?

At slaughter, broiler chickens are shackled upside down to a moving processing line. As they move along this line, they pass through a bath of electrified water intended to stun them. Then a blade cuts their throat. After that, the birds are dunked in boiling water to help to defeather their carcass.

Many people are unaware that egg-laying hens ultimately meet a similar fate. Once their egg production declines, they are considered useless to the industry and sent to slaughter.

Male chicks born into the egg industry suffer one of the darkest fates of all animals used in our modern food system. As the eggs hatch, workers place birds on a conveyor belt to be "sexed." Female chicks are set aside to be shipped off to egg facilities, but male chicks have no economic use in the industry. In most hatcheries, workers toss male chicks into macerating machines where they are ground alive.

How are chickens killed in factories?

In the US poultry industry, most chickens are slaughtered using live-shackle slaughter. Birds are forced onto a processing line that passes through an electrified pool of water intended to stun them. Then, a sharp blade slits their throat to kill them. Sadly, the stunning system is unreliable, and many birds remain fully conscious during their brutal slaughter.

USDA inspectors have found extensive violations in slaughterhouses. This includes birds who evade slaughter being boiled alive in the defeathering phase, as well as live birds left among the dead, and other horrifying abuses.

For billions of sentient birds, the slaughterhouse is a horrifying end to a miserable and short life in industrial farming.

How do fast food restaurants slaughter their chickens?

Fast food chains use chicken suppliers that practice live-shackle slaughter. McDonald's, for example, is the second largest purchaser of chicken in the world. The birds used for McDonald's meals suffer tormented lives, with no minimum space requirements, no natural light, and an inhumane slaughter.

At the slaughterhouse, these birds are hung upside down and run through an electrically-charged pool of water intended to stun them. Many of the birds are not properly stunned, and their throats are slit while they're fully conscious.

Is killing chickens animal cruelty?

Chickens are intelligent and social animals, capable of nuanced thoughts and feelings. The modern poultry industry treats these birds as commodities, not sentient beings. The individuals exploited to meet consumer demand for cheap chicken suffer lives of darkness, filth, and overcrowding. Their unnatural growth rate causes immense pain and discomfort, only to maximize industry profits. The brutal slaughter of each bird marks the end of a life of tremendous suffering. Chickens endure a cruel fate in our broken food system.

Be a champion for chickens

Chickens deserve better than this horrific violence in our broken food system. Together, we can raise awareness and call on the chicken industry to put an end to this cruelty.