April News

Easter Chicks

Hatching projects are still classed as part of the education curriculum in many schools. We have again spent time trying to educate schools to the lie they are being sold. These ruthless companies who provide eggs to hatch so that children can observe the life cycle of chicks sell the fairytale in the name of education.

They make the schools believe that after the two weeks they spend in schools being cuddled and handled by children they then go off to small holding to run in lush pastures. This is a blatant lie !! in the small print it states that if they are unfortunate to hatch into Cockerels they may be culled as there is not a need for the males.

If they are females, they could go into the farming industry to be egg layers or be part of the food industry. They even go on to state that this is a great opportunity to speak to younger children about where their food comes from. I challenge anyone to explain the chicks they have loved and nurtured are going off to become their chicken nuggets without causing mass hysteria or lots of tears, but this is the reality. I thought we would share a little about what their lives will become after they leave the schools below.

Egg Farming

hens have been genetically modified to produce an egg per day rather an egg per month. Their bodies are exhausted well before what should be their natural lifespan of 7-9 years.

When eggs are hatched (in egg-hatching facilities with heat lamps not under their mothers) they are sexed. Male chicks have no use in the egg industry so they are killed immediately. The usual method is throwing them live into a macerator (there is lots of footage available of chicks being thrown live and their bodies being ground up). Alternatives would be gassing them or using foam pumped in to suffocate them.

Female chicks will go into accommodation based on their type:

Free range (around 65% of eggs produced now including The Happy Egg Co). Legally they should have access to outdoors for 8 hours and have 4msq per bird. Legally indoors the space is reduced to 9 birds per square metre. The reality is they only have to have access – the majority of birds do not get out. If you can imagine a barn with thousands of hens in and access is via popholes then only those around the sides get access. They are slaughtered at 18 months when their bodies slow down production.

Free range and organic – same as above but they cannot have any vaccinations or antibiotics – in the main they only get medication if they are ill (the reality is they don’t get meds, they get killed – cheaper and less hassle).

Caged hens (and enriched colony). Same genetic modification, space is indoors only, never go outside, wings and beaks clipped, space is A4 sheet of paper per bird, enrichment can be astro-turf below them or a chain hanging or a ball (which is useless, and we have never seen any signs of enrichment in exposes). They get killed at 18 months.

Transport methods – thrown into crates and stacked on top of each other with all the resulting injuries and stresses.

Slaughter methods: gassed while in crates then hung upside down by shackles – their necks pass over a sharp blade, and they are killed. Gassing is not 100% effective; many birds are still conscious when they go over the blade (some have been known to lift their head up to miss it). They are then plunged into boiling water to loosen their feathers. The alternative to gas is shackling them and dropping them into an electric stun bath, then blade etc., same issues with consciousness.

Hens for meat

Genetically modified to be heavy, issues with deformities, acid burns, cannibalism, fighting. Killed at 42 days instead of dying at 7-9. Transport/slaughter the same.

Very few schools I have had responses from admit they don’t tell the children they will end up eaten. Only the one said it wasn’t appropriate (appropriate to lie to them though).

Out of 59 schools/homes we have contacted so far:

29 Sunderland
6 South Tyneside
6 Gateshead
5 Newcastle
1 Durham
12 others

Out of 59 projects 4 were care homes for enrichment. How can this be still happening? Admittedly we are teaching our children lots by these projects. We are teaching them that animals are there to entertain, we are teaching them that animals are disposable when they get older and are no longer cute, what we are teaching is not something that couldn’t be taught from a book, video or any of the alternative materials available to the schools. It is just lazy teaching, like that one teacher we had as kids that just played videos to keep us quiet as it was easier.