The current (Summer 2004) issue of the AV Magazine published by the American Anti-Vivisection Society contains a stunning array of articles by leading animal rights experts in the US and UK on farmed animal issues ranging from genetic engineering to vegetarianism. UPC President Karen Davis has an article, “The Life of One Battery Hen,” which looks at the hen from the hen’s point of view from the time she is an embryo in a factory hatchery until the moment when she is dumped in a bucket at the caged laying-hen facility. Here is an excerpt:
“The baby hen has comforting exchanges with the other embryos in the incubator, but a forlornness is felt inside each bird that passes from shell to shell. The two-way communication between themselves and a mother hen – the continuous interactions which they are genetically endowed to expect, and which they need – has not occurred. The mother hen’s heartbeat is missing, and she does not respond to the embryos’ calls of distress or comfort them with her soft clucks. The reverberation of something continuously running outside the eggs does not spark meaningful associations, as, for example, the crow of a rooster or the sensation of the hen shifting her eggs with her breast and her beak would comfortingly do. . . .”
The magazine cover photo, by Susan Rayfield, shows UPC rescued hens roosting in one of our trees, looking like beautiful like magnolia blossoms. The Summer issue of the AV Magazine is a powerful source of up-to-date information on a spectrum of farmed animal and vegetarian issues. It is a great gift for people who want to learn more. To order, contact:
The American Anti-Vivisection Society
801 Old York Road, #204
Jenkintown, PA 19046
Tel: 215-887-0816
Fax: 215-887-2088
Email: aavs@aavs.org
Website: www.aavs.org
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org
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