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“Around 10 million 'battery' hens are held in barren wire cages in Australia. Each hen has just 450sqcm - 550sqcm of space (less than an A4 size piece of paper), with not even enough space to stretch her wings fully, to freely move or to exercise.”
Voiceless

I don’t think anything good can be said about this practice. Here are some facts from Animals Australia: the voice for animals Broiler Chickens Fact Sheet.

• Every year in Australia alone, an astonishing 488* million chickens are raised and slaughtered for meat. Only around 4% of chickens are raised ‘free range’ in Australia (and about half of that is also ‘organic’). *Australian Chicken Meat Federation estimate for 2006/7
• …in 1950/51, only 3 million broilers were raised commercially, and now over 400 million are raised and killed in Australia each year.
• Three large integrated companies supply about 80% of Australia’s broiler chickens - Inghams Enterprises, Bartter Enterprises and Baiada.
• Over 50 years ago it took 98 days for a chicken to grow to 1.6kg. By 1986, due to selective breeding, it only took 37 days. Baby birds, who still chirp and have soft feathers, have the bodies of adult birds. This unnatural growth rate puts enormous pressure on the heart and immature skeleton and is the cause of many health problems.
• Around 2% of birds die in the sheds from illness, trauma and starvation when they are unable to reach food and water, or are trampled by other birds.
• A typical facility may house 300,000 birds at a time with 40,000 - 60,000 birds per shed. Contracted ‘growers’ for the large companies therefore each grow several million birds annually. The chickens live on the ground on litter (wood shavings, rice hulls etc) in huge sheds.
• …for birds that are slaughtered at 2 kilograms, each has the equivalent of 500 square centimetres floor space (less than the size of an A4 page).
• Before catching the chickens to be transportation for slaughter, food is withdrawn for 8-12 hours and water for 1 hour. Catchers walk through the sheds at night grabbing birds by one leg and carrying them in bunches (up to five each hand) to crates. They are then bundled into the crates and stacked onto a truck.
• Each year in Australia, around 625,000 birds die on the way to the slaughterhouse from various causes. Of those that survive the journey, almost 10,000,000 or 25% have fractures and nearly 15,000,000 (30%) have dislocated hips.
  (Source, Animal Liberation SA Website)

OTHER LINKS

• Vegsoc information sheet on Broiler Chickens
• Jamie Oliver recently electrocuted and butchered a live chicken on TV to demonstrate the inhumane way table birds are killed, reported in the following articles:
  UK Telegraph report
  Common Dreams report
• This video is not for the faint hearted

VOICELESS

Voiceless is a non profit Australian organisation established in May 2004 by father and daughter team Brian and Ondine Sherman. To build and fortify the animal protection movement, Voiceless:

• gives grants to key projects which create the groundswell for social change;
• cultivates the animal law community through the provision of leadership, educational opportunities and resources; and
• raises awareness of animal protection issues within the education system in order to strengthen democratic skills, promote critical thinking and encourage advocacy amongst students.

Click here for the full text of a piece written by J. M. Coetzee and spoken by Hugo Weaving at the exhibition opening of ‘Voiceless: I feel therefore I am’, Sherman Galleries, Thursday, 22 February 2007, please follow this link.

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What is ‘not chicken’?

‘Not chicken’ or Soy nuggets are names given to vegetarian products that look and taste a bit like chicken. They are made from soy and wheat protein.

A lot of people are really freaked out by vegetarian food in the shape of, or tasting like meat. It’s just that the name vegetarian snausage is better than Wheat based gluten stick for BBQ’s and Not Chicken is more marketable than soy protein pieces. So don’t be put off by the meaty sounding names, you can make some really great recipes with them. I’m glad to have the variety and although all ‘not meat’ products are highly processed they are usually high in protein, fibre and tasty to boot. You can buy ‘not chicken’ at the Asian grocery store. After trying every brand available Kanaga and I agree the brand pictured is the best.