United Poultry Concerns - [link removed]
22 February 2020

Chick Shredding, Pet Food & Tyson Proteins

By Karen Davis, PhD,
President, United Poultry Concerns


"Killing day-old male chicks will soon be history."
Poultry World, February 7, 2020.

German and French ministers of Agriculture have announced that their countries
expect to stop shredding newborn male chicks by December 31, 2021.1 The
Netherlands is set to follow, and Switzerland announced a ban on chick shredding
starting January this year with the exception that "smaller" Swiss egg producers
may gas their chicks with carbon dioxide.2

Each year, the global egg industry destroys 7 billion-plus newborn male chicks
at the hatchery as soon as they are determined by the chick sexers to be
roosters and thus useless, since roosters don't lay eggs. Methods of destruction
of chickens, turkeys and other unwanted birds, both male and female in all
poultry sectors, include shredding (throwing them into grinding machines),
carbon dioxide gassing, suffocation in plastic bags, and electrocution.

Even if chick "shredding" is banned, it does not mean that alternative methods
of killing will not be employed as countries, including the United States and
Canada, await the perfection of "economically feasible" technology and the
assurance that markets are available for the "male eggs" in the form of
processed ingredients. Markets include feedmills, aquaculture, calf milk, zoos,
fur farms and petfood producers.3


Can a "Clean" Pet Food Industry Compete With Conventional Pet Food?

The benefits of an animal-meat-free diet for pets.

If a viable plant-based and cellular meat-based pet food industry were
developed, it could probably compete favorably with the current pet food
industry if the product was readily available, the price was right, and people
would buy it.

Let's consider the advantages of plant-based and cellular meat-based pet food,
as described in a new book by three specialists in veterinary science, The Clean
Pet Food Revolution: How Better Pet Food Will Change the World. Not having read
the book yet, I'm relying on an interview with the authors by Marc Bekoff, PhD,
posted January 8, 2020, on Psychology Today. Here's what is said in the
interview.4

A quarter of all meat consumed in the United States is eaten by our companion
dogs and cats - equal to the amount of meat consumed by 26 million Americans. As
more and more "pet parents" demand human-grade meats for their dogs and cats, 30
percent of intensively farmed animals are now being bred, raised and slaughtered
specifically for pet food. Other hidden victims of the pet food industry are the
dogs kept on "kennel farms" for use in pet food feeding trials.

The authors of The Clean Pet Food Revolution cite four key reasons for
advocating a plant-based or cellular meat-based diet for dogs and cats: To
improve their health since standard pet food is often contaminated; to reduce
the number of chickens and other animals who end up as pet food ingredients; to
help pet owners expand their circle of compassion by removing the barriers that
distinguish "pets" from "food" animals; and to reduce the contribution of animal
agribusiness to the human-caused climate crisis.

Novel proteins, such as cultured fungi and yeast-based dog food, along with
cellular meat-based cat food, could remove some farmed animals from pet food.
The Clean Pet Food Revolution explains why "cell-based, cultured or 'clean' meat
has enormous potential to offer a more environmentally-friendly, sustainable,
and ethical way to feed carnivorous cats." Cellular meat-based protein, the
authors contend, "is identical to animal meat in terms of nutritional
composition, taste, and smell but not a single animal has to be harmed to make
it." Currently, though, isn't slaughtered calf blood - fetal bovine serum - the
nutrient medium in which cellular meat protein is grown in most laboratories? 5


Tyson Buys American Proteins

"Tyson builds on sustainability." Feedstuffs, May 15, 2018.

A different perspective appears in a 2018 article in the agribusiness
publication Feedstuffs. It describes the acquisition by Tyson Foods of American
Proteins Inc. and AMPRO Products Inc. - the "international resource for
processing allied poultry products." 6

This acquisition is expected to enable Tyson "to recycle more animal products
for feed, pet food and aquaculture, among other things, and expand its presence
in the growing animal feed ingredient business."

This business includes rendering - recycling - dead animals, mainly farmed
animals, including shredded chicks and fish, into those cheerful packages
beckoning pet owners at the grocery store. According to Tyson, "Rendering is an
environmentally friendlier way to keep animal products out of landfills and
potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions," since "no part of the animal goes
to waste."

The pet food industry is a $30 billion industry.7 American Proteins, based in
Georgia and Alabama, has described itself as "the largest poultry protein and
lipids conversion operation in the world, annually producing more than 750,000
tons of pet food and feed grade poultry protein meal and pet food and feed grade
poultry fat and feather meal."

Each week, a thousand truckloads of dead birds from poultry slaughter plants,
hatcheries and factory farms have been described lumbering into the Hanceville,
Alabama plant to be converted into either "pet-food-grade poultry meals and fat"
or "feed-grade" versions for the livestock industries.8

All of this boils down to the fact that human beings consume animal products,
although as noted, an entirely new sector is said to have emerged alongside
traditional channels, wherein 30 percent of intensively farmed animals in the
U.S. are now being raised specifically to become pet food for "fancy feast" and
"fresh pet"-type buyers.


The Global Animal "Waste" Has to Go "Somewhere"

The blog site "There's an Elephant in the Room" reminds us that "Despite the
euphoria caused by the proliferation of plant based dietary options in shops and
restaurants, the statistics don't bear out the wishful thinking about veganism
taking over the world any time soon." What's more, the "entire obscene increase
is being borne by chickens." 9

The current population of 7.8 billion people on the planet correlates with an
increase of nearly 2.2 billion animals slaughtered globally since 2017. The
number of slaughtered chickens rose from 66.5 billion in 2017 to nearly 69
billion in 2018. Add to chickens the millions of turkeys, ducks, guinea fowl and
other birds slaughtered for food, and the number of birds totals 73.2 billion
out of 77,056,246,402 billion land animals slaughtered worldwide in 2018.

These numbers do not include all the animals who die before slaughter. In the
U.S. alone, millions of chickens die prematurely in the sheds and transport
trucks each year of heat suffocation, freezing temperatures, medication
reactions, and diseases. Most bodies are trucked to rendering companies. Surely,
agribusiness will fight to keep "clean" pet food from threatening the lucrative
business of recycling the daily mortalities and oversupplies of animal flesh and
hatchery "waste" that have to go somewhere.

As animal advocates, we need to understand how chick killing, pet food, and
animal-free meat fit together in the overall picture. The global farmed animal
enterprise produces such massive amounts of inedible and over-produced carnage
that, as long as billions of people consume animal products, it will require
conversion into further commercial products. That is why agribusiness loves our
pets and woos pet owners with packages promising to feed our companion dogs and
cats just like family.


Notes

1. Meaghan Wray, "Germany, France push to end male chick 'shredding' in European Union." Global News, January 16, 2020.
[link removed]

2. "Shredding of live chicks to be banned in Switzerland from January 2020."
The Local, December 27, 2019. Carbon dioxide activates brain regions in both
birds and humans that involve the perception of pain. CO2 causes panic in
response to the sensation of suffocation. Inhalation of CO2 is both painful and
distressing because birds, like humans, have chemical receptors that are acutely
sensitive to CO2. Ruth Harrison, the author of Animal Machines (1964), said she
stopped endorsing CO2 after inhaling it herself. Regarding the gassing of
day-old chicks, she said: "In my opinion, it is no better than the old practice
of filling up a dustbin with them and letting them suffocate."
Quoted in Annabelle Birchall, "Kinder ways to kill."
New Scientist, May 19, 1990, 44-49.
[link removed]

3. Fabian Brockotter, "SELEGGT stops day-old-chick culling." Poultry World,
February 7, 2020.
[link removed]

4. Marc Bekoff, "The Clean Pet Food Revolution Will Change the World."
Psychology Today, January 8, 2020.
[link removed]

5. Nick Thieme, "The Gruesome Truth About Lab-Grown Meat." Slate, July 11, 2017.
See also John Sanbonmatsu, www.CleanMeat-Hoax.com.
[link removed]
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6. "Tyson acquires American Proteins, AMPRO Products." Feedstuffs, May 15, 2018.
[link removed]

7. "Who Is In Your Dog's Food?" United Poultry Concerns link to Kate Bratskeir,
"Should your dog be eating home-delivered, human-grade dog food?"
Mic, November 27, 2017.
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8. Karen Davis, "Pet Food, Bird Shredding & Embryo Sexing: Behind the Scenes."
United Poultry Concerns, September 7, 2016.
[link removed]

9. "Slaughter numbers jump by 2.2 billion." There's an Elephant in the Room,
February 10, 2020.
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--
United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes
the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.
Don't just switch from beef to chicken. Go Vegan.
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