Urge the Government to Implement Humane Standards for Chickens Immediately!

PETA India recently released a report on India's chicken-meat and egg industries that describes living – and dying – conditions beyond anyone's worst nightmare. During a five-year investigation of poultry farms in India, PETA India's investigators found gruesome abuse of animals. They also witnessed living conditions that provide an ideal breeding ground for outbreaks of diseases including E coli, salmonella, listeria and the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Chickens raised in factory farms for tikkas and burgers are crammed into sheds and bred to grow so quickly that their hearts, lungs and legs cannot keep up. Conscious chickens have their beaks cut off (and sometimes parts of their faces and tongues, too), have their throats slit and are sometimes scalded to death, all without the use of painkillers. Chickens sold in live-animal markets are often kept in filthy, rusted wire cages without food or water. They are then slaughtered in front of other terrified animals.

Egg-laying hens don't have it any easier. Six to seven birds are crammed together into cages so tiny, they cannot stretch even one wing during their entire lifetime. Besides causing extreme stress, these crowded conditions force the hens to rub against the cage wires, causing the birds to lose their feathers and suffer from bruises, abrasions and boils. Ammonia fumes from built-up waste cause birds to suffer respiratory problems. Cages are stacked one on top of another, causing faeces to fall from the birds on top onto the birds beneath them.

You Can Help!

Chickens are counting on your help! Give a cluck about them. Please write to the Secretary of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, urging him to immediately enact humane standards for chickens. Automatically send a message to him using this sample letter:

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