Yes some of your supermarket purchases perpetuate this practice, especially cheap chicken meat. There is nothing crueller than purposely breeding meat chickens to grow so quickly and so big that they can't stand up and can't even get out of their own excrement.
If you say you don't know about the misery of caged egg producing chickens then you are living under a rock because that has been exposed for decades and thankfully the consumer trend is changing.
You may not be aware of the plight of caged pigs though and this video is very gentle and doesn't tell you the half of it.
Yes some of your supermarket purchases attribute to this inhumane set of practices
BUT
it is most definitely your choice of fast food outlet that contributes to this.
For every chicken nugget pack you eat, several meat birds have died suffocated in their own hot smelly rank conditions with broken legs.
For every bacon and egg burger a chicken has had it's beak ground off so it can't peck. It only wants to peck because it is slowly being driven insane by the unnatural conditions and over-crowding.
A pig is penned so that it can't turn around, it has nothing to look at day in day out and all natural inclinations are curbed. It too is slowly going insane.
Our chickens are free ranging in a large yard and sometimes into the garden proper too. Even so we know a happy chicken needs change and variety. We change the landscape of their yard with blocks of wood, bales of straw and old tyres, giving them something to jump on or through. We hang bunches of greens from baling twine so they are pecking a moving object and being mind stimulated.
A happy chicken produces good eggs.
Please consider ALL your food purchases carefully and consciously.
It is not fair to blame a farmer who is responds to consumer demand. If you demand ethical food, they will produce it.
Tasmania is phasing out sow stalls by 2014.
Tasmania banned battery hens in 2012. If you are still buying caged eggs in Tasmania then they are coming from the mainland.
We are so lucky in Tasmania, most of the meat produced here is ethically raised and it is easy to meet your farmer and your food face to face. We (Craig and I) buy pork (Landrace and Wessex Saddleback and sometimes a bit of Tamworth) from farmers we know and they are often pigs we have met and patted in the paddock.
I believe in eating meat and I believe in the consequences and the responsibility of that decision.
Good on you Tanya and very well put! I was shocked to meet a QLD pig farmer recently who told me how important sow stall are because pigs are horrible animals. That is one farmer who shouldn't be in business! I shocked her by saying I wanted to keep pigs free-range in the bushland on our property, I think she imagined them trying to eat me :)
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