Written by PETA
As a PETA blogger, I know that male chicks in the egg industry are simply discarded and killed—but knowing about it didn't make watching it any easier.
This new footage from an undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals shows workers at an Iowa hatchery killing 150,000 newborn male chicks every single day.
Chicks born at hatcheries are sent off to slaughter the very day they take their first breath. The only lives these babies know is one in which they are sorted and handled like pieces of garbage. Workers grab them by their wings, toss them onto conveyor belts, and throw them down a chute to spend their final moments in a grinding machine—in which they are ground up while they are still alive.
All this is standard procedure, widely accepted at commercial hatcheries and within the bounds of animal welfare laws. The egg industry considers male chicks to be useless because they don't lay eggs and can't be raised profitably for meat. Their sisters are not exactly lucky to remain alive.
For anyone who thinks that eating eggs doesn't kill animals, millions of male chicks each year are born in hatcheries and promptly thrown into the blades of giant garbage disposals.
Egg-free recipes, anyone?
Written by Heather Drennan
Anyone out there know of a gadget that makes rotten retailers stop selling live frogs and snails in tiny prisons? Anyone?
Didn't think so. That's why we're calling on you to drop whatever you're doing right now and tell gadget magnate Brookstone to stop selling Frog-O-Spheres ASAP!
Despite complaint after complaint, Brookstone—a company that apparently has a heart of stone—is continuing to "package" frogs and snails together in pitiful plastic prisons and sell them to customers who don't have a clue about how to take care of these extremely delicate animals.
A distraught Brookstone employee has sent us undercover photos and horrifying details confirming that frogs and snails are sold with little regard for who will care for them:
"Most parents will exclaim right in front of me that they are not going to help the child to care for these living creatures. Then when I offer to sell them the additional food they will tell me flat out that the frogs won't live that long. It kills me that these frogs that can live to be 15 years old [won't] even last 1 year as a pet in a controlled [environment]."
The whistleblower went on to describe how animals are forced to languish and suffer on Brookstone's shelves without any veterinary care:
"We did have a frog that had a growth on its bottom. We eventually transferred that aquarium to the stock room and the frog died. No vet was called …. There is absolutely no policy or [veterinary] contact in my store for sick frogs. … [W]hen they do die we are told to "flush" them. … The snails die even more frequently. We have a bag full of over 15 snails that have died in the last month."
But, hey, no worries—if Kermit dies before his 30-day warranty is up, Brookstone will replace him for free! So long as you have your receipt, just flush and replace.
Let Brookstone know that these frogs aren't just a drop in the bucket. Please take action now!
Written by Amy Elizabeth
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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