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  • Chickens.

  • They are everywhere.

  • Their meteoric rise in number over time makes them 70% of all birds alive right now on Earth,

  • 23 billion or so, all born for their meat, or the eggs they produce.

  • Together with turkeys, they are 99% of all land animals slaughtered for food in the United

  • States, with an estimated 55 billion killed worldwide yearly.

  • That is 5,400,000 every hour or around 1,500 every second.

  • So, what prompted humans to produce and kill so many chickens?

  • Did you know they are a lot smarter than we think and have the ability to dream like humans?

  • Do you know how the chickens we consume are raised and treated?

  • Time is over for egg-scuses.

  • The truth is no yolk; let's find out now.

  • Chickens (Gallus domesticus) are domestic birds that cannot fly.

  • There are over 150 different breeds that come in various colours, patterns, and sizes.

  • Let's not get into what came first - the chicken or egg; let's start by looking at

  • the amazing way a chick develops and is born from an egg….

  • It takes 24 to 26 hours for a hen to construct an egg.

  • Once a yolk is fully developed, it is released from the ovary into the oviduct, which is

  • made up of five different sections.

  • The first stop is the infundibulum, which, in addition to being fun to say, is a short,

  • muscular portion of the oviduct which engulfs the ovum, or yolk, that is released from the

  • ovary.

  • The ovum remains in the infundibulum for 15 to 18 minutes, and it is here where fertilisation

  • would occur if the hen mated with a rooster.

  • However, eggs sold for human consumption are not fertilised.

  • The next stage occurs in the magnum, the largest section of the oviduct at 13 inches long.

  • The yolk stays in the magnum for 3 hours while the albumen, oregg white,” is added.

  • The third stop is the isthmus, where the inner and outer shell membranes are added over a

  • period of 75 minutes.

  • The longest stage of egg production occurs in the shell gland or uterus.

  • This is where the shell is deposited around the egg, which takes 20 plus hours.

  • Eggshells are mostly made of calcium carbonate, and for each shell produced, the hen must

  • lose approximately 10% of the calcium stored in her bones.

  • The last stop in egg production is the vagina.

  • This is where a coating of mucus is added to the shell.

  • The vagina pushes the egg out through the vent or cloaca - the shared exit through which

  • urine, faeces, and eggs are excreted.

  • If the egg was fertilized, a baby chicken hatches after about 21 days and is known as

  • a chick.

  • After 16 weeks, they are usually fully developed adults.

  • Males are known as roosters and females as hens.

  • Chickens are surprisingly intelligent animals.

  • They can perceive time intervals, anticipate future events, recall the location of a hidden

  • object, and recognise over 100 individual faces, not only of fellow chickens but of

  • humans.

  • They also pass down knowledge from generation to generation.

  • Chickens are caring and sensitive animals who feel joy, loneliness, frustration, fear,

  • and pain.

  • They experience rapid eye movement, or REM, during sleep; an indication that they dream

  • akin to humans, and that their minds may be wandering far from the walls of the factory

  • farms where they are imprisoned.

  • Mother hens begin communicating with their chicks before they even hatch.

  • While the babies are still inside their shells, the mother hen clucks softly to them, and

  • they chirp back.

  • Chickens also purr when they're petted, like cats.

  • This communication is done with more than 24 vocalisations, and each one has a distinct

  • meaning.

  • The history of chickens is similarly fascinating.

  • Chickens are, in fact, modern dinosaurs.

  • A comparison of the amino-acid sequence from T-Rex collagen showed that it shared a remarkable

  • similarity to that of chickens.

  • The T-Rex is actually more closely related to chickens than alligators.

  • Chickens were first domesticated from a wild form called red junglefowl, in Southeast Asia

  • and China as early as 10,000 years ago.

  • By about 2000 BCE, they appeared at Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley and, from there, they

  • spread into Europe and Africa.

  • In 1944, Howard C. Pierce, the poultry research director for the A&P Food Stores supermarket

  • chain, told a poultry meeting in Canada that someone needed to develop a larger chicken

  • with a breast like a turkey.

  • By the next summer, his wish ignited the Chicken of Tomorrow contest, organised by the USDA,

  • with the backing of A&P and the support of every significant poultry and egg organisation

  • in the country.

  • The aim of this contest was to breed a bird chunky enough to feed a whole family – a

  • chicken with more meat that costs less.

  • This event led not to just the enhanced birds but a new economy their developers hoped to

  • create: one where the Chicken of Tomorrow would be the dominant meat in markets.

  • As a result, it was discovered that by using feed laced with antibiotics, chickens could

  • grow twice as fast, prompting 80% of antibiotics sold in the United States to be utilized for

  • animals used as food.

  • Over the last decades, genetic engineering and technology have produced even bigger chickens,

  • with even more flesh for meat.

  • In 2004, a team of geneticists mapped the chicken genome, which provided an opportunity

  • to study how a millennia of domestication can alter a species.

  • The researchers' findings include mutations in a gene designated TBC1D1, which regulates

  • glucose metabolism, and found that this gene could be manipulated causing chickens to become

  • unnaturally large.

  • Another mutation resulting from selective breeding is in the TSHR, the thyroid-stimulating

  • hormone receptor gene.

  • In wild animals, this gene coordinates reproduction with day length, confining breeding to specific

  • seasons.

  • The mutation disables this gene, and manipulates chickens into breeding and laying eggs all

  • year long.

  • Both of these mutations made the chicken even more attractive to meat producers.

  • Chickens raised for food fall into two categories.

  • Broiler chickens, who are raised for meat and egg laying chickens.

  • These chickens have been rendered ill and unfit by genetic manipulation, poor diets,

  • drugs, and antibiotics, as well as the toxic air and bedding in the sheds where they live.

  • Excretory ammonia fumes often become so strong that the birds develop a blinding eye disease

  • called ammonia burn, where afflicted birds rub their hurting eyes with their wings

  • Modern broiler chickens have skeletons that are significantly bigger than their wild ancestor

  • with a wide-body shape.

  • The rapid growth of leg and breast muscle tissue leads to a relative decrease in the

  • size of other organs such as the heart and lungs, which restricts their function and,

  • thus, longevity.

  • They are raised to around 6 weeks old on floors in long, low sheds the size of football fields.

  • These chickens live in semi-darkness on manure-soaked wood shavings with 30,000 or more birds confined

  • to a single shed which is often contaminated with poisonous Salmonella and Campylobacter

  • bacteria.

  • These bacteria often remain in the bird's flesh, even when it is cooked, a common cause

  • of food poisoning.

  • In the weeks that follow, their weight multiplies many times.

  • Selective breeding to grow chickens tomarket weightfaster has increased at an alarming

  • pace; by more than 300% over the last 50 years.

  • Approximately 5 billion egg-laying hens orlayersare held in battery cages throughout

  • the world, many of them in production complexes holding a million or more birds.

  • On average, each caged layer is afforded only 67 square inches of cage spaceless space

  • than a single sheet of letter-sized paper on which to live her entire life.

  • Today's hen, selectively bred and artificially induced to yield high egg production, will

  • produce more than 250 eggs annually, compared to 100 eggs annually a century ago.

  • 51.4 billion chickens are artificially hatched, fattened up, and slaughtered as 45-day-old

  • babies every year globally whereas the normal lifespan of a chicken is 10 to 15 years.

  • There isn't a single federal law in the US that protects chickens from abuseeven

  • though most Americans say that they would support such a law.

  • Female chicks are debeaked at a young age, most commonly having a portion of their beaks

  • seared off with a hot blade.

  • The purpose is to prevent abnormal feather-pecking that can result from the stress of confinement

  • in a battery cage.

  • A chicken's beak is filled with nerves, and debeaking can result in severe and possibly

  • chronic pain.

  • Male chicks in the egg industry do not have it any better.

  • Since they cannot lay eggs and aren't used for meat production, they are considered an

  • unwanted by-product and killed shortly after birth.

  • In the US, the most common practice is the macerator, which grinds them to death although

  • carbon dioxide gassing is also used.

  • At the slaughterhouse, there is no law in place requiring chickens to be rendered unconscious

  • before slaughter, and the electrified water bath used for stunning has been shown to cause

  • painful shocks before it stuns the birds.

  • Ultimately, the birds are hung by their feet and their throats are cut with blades.

  • But what abouthumanely-raisedchickens, you ask?

  • Cage-free, or free-range, hens are able to walk, spread their wings and lay their eggs

  • in nestsall vital natural behaviours denied to hens confined in cages.

  • However, most live in extremely large flocks that can consist of many thousands of hens

  • who never go outside.

  • They also typically endure more injuries than caged chickens due to overcrowding and having

  • no way to establish a natural pecking order.

  • Hence, cage-free and free-range are in no way better welfare standards for chickens.

  • The meat and egg industries inflict incredible cruelty on these intelligent and emotional

  • animals, but you can do something to help.

  • The best way to prevent chickens from suffering is simply to not eat them or their eggs.

  • By not supporting these industries you can starting saving lives right now.

  • If this video has moved you in any way make sure you share it now so it is seen by as

  • many people as possible.

  • Lets educate people and save chickens from cruel lives together.

  • So are you a vegetarian or Vegan?

  • Would you consider cutting down on meat after seeing this video?

  • Let us know this and any other thoughts on the video below.

  • Make sure you hit the like and subscribe button now if you want to see more videos like this.

  • And finally check out PETA from the link below for more information on how to help all animals

  • from abuse.

Chickens.

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