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Eggs are sickening

Announcement posted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia 11 Sep 2018

Dear Editor,
 
Australians are being warned about an outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis which has led to a recall of eggs. Symptoms include fever, headache, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, usually about six to 72 hours after the contaminated food is eaten. There is a simple solution: don’t eat eggs.
 
Birds exploited for their eggs are crammed together in wire cages without sufficient room even to spread one wing. Because the hens are packed together so tightly, these normally clean animals are forced to urinate and defecate on one another. The birds have part of their sensitive beaks cut off so that they won’t peck each other out of the frustration created by this unnatural confinement.
 
Because the male chicks of these birds are unable to lay eggs and are not bred to produce the excessive flesh demanded by the meat industry, they are gassed to death with carbon dioxide or ground up alive immediately after hatching. Females follow their mothers into a short, miserable life of confinement. After their bodies are worn out and their egg production drops, they are transported to slaughter. It is common for birds to sustain broken wings and legs from rough handling, and many die from the stress of the journey.
 
At the abattoir, the birds’ legs are forced into shackles, their throats are cut and they are plunged into scalding-hot water to remove their feathers. Because of the automated slaughter lines, many chickens are still conscious when their throats are cut, and others die from being scalded in the feather-removal tanks after missing the throat cutter.
 
If you want to dodge food poisoning, and save up to 200 chickens from this grisly fate every year, avoid eggs like the plague.
 
Desmond Bellamy
Special Projects Coordinator
PETA Australia
PO Box 2352
Byron Bay NSW 2481
0411 577 416
desmondb@peta.org.au