‘Factory’ chickens can be a threat to health

ACCORDING to the latest report of the European Food Safety Authority, 83% of chickens entering Irish slaughterhouses are infected with campylobacter, a major source of gastroenteritis in humans. This is the highest figure in Europe after Malta and Spain. As if this isn’t bad enough, a staggering 98.3% were infected after slaughtering.

Every time the animal production system staggers into a new crisis (eg, BSE, foot and mouth, avian flu, campylobacter), all we usually hear about are the economic repercussions, the threat to human health, the plight of farming families.

Little, if any, mention or investigation of the unnatural production systems and the animal welfare requirements for which legislation sets such low barriers.

More than 60 million chickens are bred and slaughtered every year in Ireland. The vast bulk of these are reared intensively in enormous, windowless sheds in densities of 19 birds per square metre, which essentially translates into them standing practically on top of each other when they reach their full size. The modern broiler chicken is selectively bred to a weight of 2.2kg in just 41 days. Forty years ago, these same birds took 84 days to reach the same weight.

A high percentage of chickens go lame when they are only a few weeks old because their puffed-up bodies grow too big for their legs to carry them. Many die of heart failure before they reach ‘maturity’. Animals are complex, sentient beings, yet we treat them as if they had no rights at all. We shouldn’t be surprised when the system develops serious cracks.

Gerry Boland

Keadue

Co Roscommon