PRISONED CHICKENS, POISONED EGGS An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry First published 1996. Revised Edition 2009 Book Publishing Company By Karen Davis, PhD Karen Davis, PhD, President United Poultry Concerns PO Box 150 Machipongo, VA 23405 (757) 678-7875
[email protected] 2 Table of Contents Preface to the New Edition Prologue Introduction Chapter 1 History Chapter 2 The Birth and Family Life of Chickens Chapter 3 The Life of the Battery Hen Chapter 4 The Life of the Broiler Chicken Chapter 5 The Death Chapter 6 A New Beginning References Index 3 Preface to the New Edition I wrote Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs in the mid-1990s in order to bring attention to the billions of chickens buried alive on factory farms. At the time, neither the animal rights movement nor the public at large knew very much about chickens or about how the poultry industry originated and developed in twentieth-century America to become the model for industrialized farmed-animal production around the world. Some informative articles and book chapters had appeared, but the poultry industry’s own detailed and glowing account of its transformation of the chicken, from an active outdoor bird scouring the woods and fields to a sedentary indoor meat and egg “machine,” filled with suffering, diseases, and antibiotics, remained largely unknown. The purpose of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs was to bring this story to light in a way that would reveal the tragedy of chickens through the lens of the industry that created their tragedy without pity or guilt. The book became, as I’d hoped it would, a blueprint for people seeking a coherent picture of the U.S.