Ban the Cruel and Barbaric Practice of Bird Debeaking
- by: Animal Advocates
- recipient: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Secretary Tom Vilsack
Debeaking, or beak trimming, was started in the 1920's by farmers that began mutilating the beaks of chickens to prevent them from picking at each other, rather than improving the environment and provideing more room for the birds.
Since then, this barbaric farm mutilation has continued on chickens and turkeys. Poultry producers used to deceive the public that a beak was as insensitive as the tip of a fingernail- but research proves the torture of debealing cause severe pain in birds. Egg producers remove a portion of hens' beaks with machinery, and without painkillers, to reduce the feather pecking that can occur in birds confined with no outlet for their normal foraging, dustbathing, and exploratory activities.
Debeaking methods include the use of hot blades, cold blades, a gas torch to burn off part of the upper beaks, soldering irons, jackknives, pruning shears, dog nail clippers, liquid nitrogen and other chemicals. Machines consisting of a hot plate and cutting bar operated by means of a foot lever, robotic beak trimmers where chicks are loaded onto the robot by hand, with holding cups around their heads, chemical debeaking using capsaicin, (a cheap non toxic substance extracted from hot peppers that causes depletion of certain neuropeptides from sensory nerves in birds), infrared beak treatment machines that cause the affected part of the beak to soften and erode away, and laser machines that cut the beak tissue with intense emissions of light and heat absorption.
Ban the barbaric and cruel practice of debeaking.
SOURCE: http://www.upc-online.org/winter07/debeaking.html
Tom Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington, DC 20250
Phone (202) 720-3631
Fax (202) 720-2166
E-mail: http://ds.usda.gov/
Debeaking, or beak trimming, was started in the 1920's by farmers that began mutilating the beaks of chickens to prevent them from picking at each other, rather than improving the environment and provideing more room for the birds.
Since then, this barbaric farm mutilation has continued on chickens and turkeys. Poultry producers used to deceive the public that a beak was as insensitive as the tip of a fingernail- but research proves the torture of debealing cause severe pain in birds. Egg producers remove a portion of hens' beaks with machinery, and without painkillers, to reduce the feather pecking that can occur in birds confined with no outlet for their normal foraging, dustbathing, and exploratory activities.
Debeaking methods include the use of hot blades, cold blades, a gas torch to burn off part of the upper beaks, soldering irons, jackknives, pruning shears, dog nail clippers, liquid nitrogen and other chemicals. Machines consisting of a hot plate and cutting bar operated by means of a foot lever, robotic beak trimmers where chicks are loaded onto the robot by hand, with holding cups around their heads, chemical debeaking using capsaicin, (a cheap non toxic substance extracted from hot peppers that causes depletion of certain neuropeptides from sensory nerves in birds), infrared beak treatment machines that cause the affected part of the beak to soften and erode away, and laser machines that cut the beak tissue with intense emissions of light and heat absorption.
Ban the barbaric and cruel practice of debeaking.
SOURCE: http://www.upc-online.org/winter07/debeaking.html
Tom Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington, DC 20250
Phone (202) 720-3631
Fax (202) 720-2166
E-mail: http://ds.usda.gov/
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