Das wahre Leben der Hühner – Animal Equality
Immer mehr Menschen greifen aus Tierschutzgründen auf Eier aus alternativen Haltungsformen wie Freiland-, Boden- oder Biohaltung zurück – in der Annahme, dass diese Eier von glücklichen Hühnern stammen, die weder Leid noch Schmerzen erfahren haben.
Wir sind dieser Annahme auf den Grund gegangen und haben uns einige der besten und bemühtesten deutschen Betriebe angesehen.
Weitere Informationen: www.animalequality.de/neuigkeiten/vorzeigehoefe-und-biosiegel-der-eierindustrie
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Transcript (English — en)
Chickens are very social animals that
like to explore their surroundings,
take dust baths, search for food,
and care for their families.
Each individual chicken has a
unique personality, its own
wishes and
needs. Chickens have a communication ability that
is on a similar
level to that of some primates. They
are intelligent, can
solve complex problems, and feel compassion
for other friendly chickens when
they are in danger.
They are very sensitive animals that should be
protected from suffering and pain
. For animal welfare reasons, more and more people are turning
to eggs from
alternative farming methods such as
free-range, barn or organic farming.
assuming that these eggs
come from happy hens that
have experienced neither suffering nor pain. The
Animal Equality investigative team has investigated
this assumption
and taken a look behind the scenes at the
best and most dedicated German
farms
. Four regional
model farms were documented that keep the animals
exclusively in alternative
husbandry systems with free range. Two
of these businesses have been
awarded organic certifications. What the
Animal Equality investigative team found there
shocked the German media.
Sick, injured, and dying chickens,
as well as decaying carcasses, lie among their
still-living
counterparts. Numerous animals exhibit
bloody ulcers, inflammation, and
torn-out feather coverings. This is
a consequence of the extreme stress situation to which
the animals are exposed.
These sensitive creatures would normally
live together in small groups of 20 chickens in a clear hierarchy. However, even in
organic farms, up to 3000 animals are
kept in one group.
The stress causes them to develop behavioral disorders, and they
pluck each other's feathers out
.
Chickens would normally lay up to 40
eggs a year, namely as many as
they can hatch themselves. In
today's egg industry, the animals are
bred to such a high standard that they lay about 300
eggs per year.
The animals have to
bear the painful consequences. Stress caused by the
crowding further weakens the animals' immune system
and is therefore often the cause
of illness and the death of many
chickens.
On average, even in
alternative husbandry systems, almost 12% of
all animals die from injuries or
diseases before they are so exhausted from laying so
many eggs at a young age
that they are killed
. Hens could actually
live up to 15 years, but in
today's egg industry they are all
mercilessly killed after 12 to 15 months of laying. Even in
organic slaughterhouses like this one, the
sensitive chickens are violently hooked by their feet
into the metal brackets of the conveyor chains
, so that the animals
hang upside down. Due to the time pressure,
painful
bone fractures are not uncommon. The defenseless animals are
then to be stunned by an electric water bath
. Often, however, the hens are
not fully stunned, so
their throats are cut while they are fully conscious
.
These images from the
Animal Equality investigative team clearly demonstrate that even
in alternative farming methods, despite
various organic labels and the efforts of
the operators
to make animal husbandry as species-appropriate as possible, the chickens
still have to suffer terrible suffering due to the system
. In our society, a hen is
worth only a few euros.
Individual support or even
veterinary care is simply not
profitable for the operators. When
sentient beings
are degraded to production machines,
this can only happen at the expense of the animals
. There is a simple
solution for how we can end this suffering together
. Millions of people
worldwide have already
decided to do so. They replace eggs and
egg products with tasty
alternatives and save
countless lives with this decision, because eggs
can easily be replaced in an animal-friendly
diet
. Scrambled eggs can
be replaced with scrambled tofu, for example, and
even fried eggs can
now be prepared purely plant-based using an egg substitute
. Even when baking, we can
draw on almost endless alternatives that do not result in the death of
lovable creatures
. Many people have
already opted for compassion and
counter-chicken eggs and
made the egg pledge. By making this
promise, you commit
to replacing chicken eggs with animal-friendly alternatives and receive
helpful tips for the switch.
A few hens were lucky enough
to escape the horrors of the egg industry
and spend the rest of their lives at
an animal sanctuary
. Lisa is one of those
lucky ones. After being crammed together with
thousands of other chickens for months and
laying eggs,
she was freed shortly before her scheduled slaughter
. The lives of countless
sentient beings are in our
hands. We can save hens like Lisa from a
terrible fate by
choosing animal-friendly alternatives to animal products. เฮ