Ewwwwww

[petal*pusher]

Very sad....very sad.....but the fact is somebody actually allowed this to happen! It is unfortunate that so many who are "in charge" put such little value on any form of life. I think the Dept. of Ag. should be held accountable here too.

It seems to me that there must be a more humane method to dispose of these "old girls".......where are the amimal rights people? They'd surely have a field day with this one.

Actually, I AM a vegetarian.......have been for about 10 years now. My reasoning is not that I'm against killing an animal.....I simply feel much better by eating no meat. These poor chickens were probably raised in too-tiny cages...never felt anything but wire and chicken-p**p under their feet...had a big rooster strut daily over the thousands of stacked cages so they would lay their little daily egg for us.

[Miss Mary]

petal pusher>>Actually, I AM a vegetarian.......have been for about 10 years now. My reasoning is not that I'm against killing an animal.....I simply feel much better by eating no meat. These poor chickens were probably raised in too-tiny cages...never felt anything but wire and chicken-p**p under their feet...had a big rooster strut daily over the thousands of stacked cages so they would lay their little daily egg for us.<<

Good for you being a vegetarian. My line is always if we could afford a live in chef I'd be one in a heartbeat. You see the way I learned to cook was you start with the meat and then choose your sides. But thru the years I've eaten less and less meat. And like you I feel better. I used to eat an entire porterhouse steak 20 years ago! 2 chicken breasts too. Now I split one chicken breast with my hubby. We're more into veggies anyway.

But you sure hit the nail on the head at the end of your post. Makes you shudder to think what these poor animals endure each and every day just to put food on our tables. Another example of caged animals are puppy mills. That just makes me so very ill to think those female dogs are just bred, over and over again. What kind of life is that? Somehow our habits in this country have gotten off track. Yes, it's much better than Iraq but some practices are deplorable.

[WidreMann]

Only sentient/conscious creatures should be afforded human rights. After all, why should a being that has the same level of consciousness as a car be afforded any special rights when a car isn't? And for that matter, why should anything with that level of consciousness be afforded any rights. These things are all machines, plain and simple. Just because the machine is made out of biological parts as opposed to mechanical parts doesn't make it special. As far as chickens go, they don't seem to be in that category (perhaps on the line). Cats and dogs are, as are primates and a few other groups of animals. Humans are not only sentient, but "meta-sentient". We can philosophize about the universe and change it, among being able to talk and commit suicide.

As for these guys, they had to get rid of the chickens, so they looked for an efficient way to do it AND they actually checked it out with the authorities. There was likely no malicious intent, so I don't think anything should be done, even though it was kind of weird.