There is no need to be vegetarians or vegans to recognize it: the breeding of chickens has always been the most cruel meat production sector in the world, with 70 billion specimens raised every year that are born and die within less than two months.
We are led to think that this production at tight pace has far lower costs than a slow and respectful breeding of the well -being of chickens, and for this reason it seems normal that the greatest greased by suffering less are much more expensive in the supermarket (and, consequently, much less bought).
A study published on Nature Food He denies this belief, stating that reducing the atrocious suffering of the life of a chicken by one hour costs just a penny of the hundredth of a dollar.
A life of suffering. The breeding chickens, called Broiler, live their lives between atrocious suffering. When they are born they weigh just 40 grams, and within eight weeks they already reach the three kilos:
This unnatural hypercrudescita brings very serious consequences on their health, often making them lame (the legs break for too much weight) and making them suffer from cardiovascular problems, stress for too hot and unbearable pains.
Worse for parents. To suffer even more are the parents used to give birth to meat chicks: since they have the same genes modified to grow and gain weight quickly but they must live longer than their offspring, these chickens are hungry not to die for too much weight, living an even longer life of suffering.
«To significantly improve well -being in the production of meat chickens, genetic changes are needed. Otherwise, the mothers will have to continue to endure extreme hunger to avoid the health problems caused by rapid growth, “underlines Cynthia Schuck-Paim, a research coordinator.
Enough less than a euro. The results of the study are the result of the application of a scientific method called Welfare Footprint Framework, which quantifies and compares animal well -being objectively and based on evidence.
According to what has been estimated, to switch from a rapid growth breeding to a slower-growing chickens, respecting the standards of the Better Chicken Commitment (an initiative promoted in Europe by over 30 non-profit organizations engaged in the protection of animal welfare), a dollar per kilo of meat would be enough: this would save every animal from 15 to 100 hours of intense pain.
“When comparing how much it costs to avoid intense pain with the cost of other externalities, the numbers speak for themselves,” comments Kate Hartcher, one of the authors. Until now we have not had a standard measure that would allow us to evaluate animal welfare like other financial or environmental indicators: now that we have it, there are no more excuses to ignore their sufferings.
