New Hatchery Video in Huffington Post

[Sarabi]

Mercy for Animals came out with a new video of a chicken hatchery:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_273652.html

I really dislike seeing all the "I'll never be vegan" responses from the mainstream that comes when this kind of thing goes viral... I posted a comment on Digg questioning the need for animal products at all, and someone responds telling me that going vegan will take a 1000 steps, so instead we should try to genetically manipulate hens to lay only female chicks, as if that's going to take less steps than going vegan.

But I have seen at least one person on Twitter say it makes them want to go vegan. The video ends by suggesting a vegan diet.

[kriz]

HORRIFIC!! I wish this was a separate incident and very unusual, but it's not, we all know that here... Horrific are also many of the nasty comments on the video on Huffington Post, a progressive online magazine. So much for those "progressive" readers (I don't believe they were all trolls). But, then again, I'm not surprised because my ideas of animal rights and compassion is usually not met with more positivity among leftist environmentalist than the conservative crowd. Hopefully, one day, it will be an oxymoron to be against animal rights and a leftist, but that's not the case right now... it's a BIG elephant in their room.

[Jiffy]

People will feel there is no need to go vegan all the time you have muppets like Friends of the Earth et al insisting that animal farming is perfectly OK is it is done in the 'right' or 'sustainable' way. Don't get me started on 'Freedom Foods' promoted by the swollen tongued mockney.

Their current campaign is to stops animals being fed soy and thus stop destruction of the rainforest, apparently. When I was given a leaflet by a FOE activist the other day I asked why they didn't promote veganism and have done with it.

[Ms_Derious]

These videos make me very upset, but I don't think they really convert anyone to veganism. Most people I know who are vegetarianism or vegan drifted that way over time, rather than as a response to one thing.

I also find the way some people try to force others through to engage with these images kind of negative. I know I find them very distressing, and in a lot of ways, I'm a 'dig my heels in' kind of person, and attempts to make me do certain things by showing information in a certain way I'm likely to go against it.

I recently went to a vegan food fayre, and they had some animal welfare videos playing in one part of the main hall. It was all 'undercover footage' of animals being treated very poorly or killed in cruel ways. I don't feel that's something I need to see at the best of times, and certainly not when I'm chowing down on a bit of vegan cake. I don't feel it's a motivator for people.

Its a tough call though, as the vegan message isn't getting out their simply by talking to people about things. Maybe I'm wrong and videos like this help. I think people who aren't interested in compassionate living go out of their way to find out information about how their actions effect others, so maybe things like this help. I do think it should be an option as to if you see things like this, and it shouldn't be delivered to people unwittingly. I remember once being sent a link to an animal cruelty video and the person sending it to me mislead me as to the content. I felt very upset about this afterwards.

Question: Did anyone reading this become vegan (or initially veggie) after seeing something like this? How did you happen to see it, were you looking for information in the first instance because you were interested in cruelty free eating?

[matt35mm]

I guess I sorta did. I went vegetarian on a whim, because I was bored and thought it might be fun to try for a month. During that month, I read up on it more and decided to stick with it. But four months after that, I discovered the de-beaking and saw some video of that, and decided to go vegan. I can't remember what I was looking for, or if I was already thinking about going vegan, or maybe I was getting read to try it for a month, but when I saw the de-beaking it was a pretty instant and clear decision that it was too far.

But previous to that, I had always found videos like these annoying. This one, however, I posted to my Facebook profile (which I rarely do), because it's pretty straight-forward, doesn't have a bunch of sad music, and largely focuses on what's inherently built into making economically feasible eggs on a large scale. Most videos show what many people assume are worst-case scenarios, but this video shows what are practically the best-case scenarios.

Even when I was a vegetarian, I wasn't aware of things like the culling of males or the de-beaking, so I thought it was fair to share this as a piece of information that is likely not known by a lot of my friends.

I only just read the comments on the page, though, and they're pretty disappointing. The comments by vegans are no less disappointing, and some of them are really annoying (amber15). I'm pretty baffled by the argument in the comments of, "Well, lions eat gazelles and they'd eat us if they had the chance." Did that person even watch this video or read the article?

[Sarabi]

Question: Did anyone reading this become vegan (or initially veggie) after seeing something like this? How did you happen to see it, were you looking for information in the first instance because you were interested in cruelty free eating?

Absolutely, yes. ChooseVeg.com, the website promoted at the end of the hatchery video, is the website that got me to go vegan over night. However, it wasn't my first step, not 100% out of the blue. I had become vegetarian a week before and told a friend, who responded by telling me I should go vegan and sending me to ChooseVeg.com. If I hadn't already been vegetarian, I might not have responded too well as to what to do... veganism would've been pretty scary. But I'll never know. I also gave that link to a friend of mine who then decided to stop eating meat (he says it's hard for him, so I haven't yet asked him to consider giving up the rest).

Personally, though, I dislike seeing these videos in the hands of the mainstream and people who have no care at all for animals to begin with because they usually respond by asking for humane meat or just being rude... and that's too much for me to bear, to see people who care so little about suffering and so much about their own convenience. Videos like this are very intimate for me, and I want to keep it that way.

From Twitter:

I'm already ovo-lacto veg. but after that baby chick grinding thing I'm going vegan starting............NOW! It will be a challenge

This is horrifying - I'm already vegetarian, might need to go vegan if I can't find a moral egg sply

Disturbing video of baby chickens being killed..ummm..where's PETA?!: This video makes you want to go vegan..som..

Srsly wants to go vegan now. For real. http://bit.ly/KjMSj

OMG! It makes me want to go vegan. This http://post.ly/3gAl is disgusting.

http://twitter.com/veganhelp

It's interesting to me how 2/5 of these are already vegetarian and 1/5 used to be on a vegan diet.

[tj030595]

You think that's bad? Have you seen this yet:

http://www.goodeater.org/2/post/2009...-pete-jen.html


Warning: scroll down carefully. It gets graphic.

[Sarabi]

Next, I firmly grasp his head, place the electrified knife against his neck, and push the button to zap him. His body convulses surprisingly strongly when I do this, all of his muscles clenching simultaneously as he is stunned into unconsciousness.

"Humane" killing for you.

[Serenity_Leigh]

http://www.goodeater.org/2/post/2009...-pete-jen.html


Warning: scroll down carefully. It gets graphic.

That is truly one of the most the most awful thing I've ever seen in my life.

[Jiffy]

Yes but getting to see the 'beautiful blood' makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?

[fiamma]

Question: Did anyone reading this become vegan (or initially veggie) after seeing something like this? How did you happen to see it, were you looking for information in the first instance because you were interested in cruelty free eating?

I did - I became vegan (after being veggie for a long time) after watching all the videos on PeTA TV. Don't remember why I began watching them in the first place, but they sure as hell convinced me I should stop eating dairy - I didn't have a clue all that stuff was going on. So I wouldn't dismiss them a priori and think no-one is influenced by them, because i certainly was.

[Jiffy]

I became vegetarian, along with my wife, after watching 'The Animals film' way back in the eighties.

[kriz]

I think it also depends where you are in your life emotionally and how an animal cruelty movie will affect you. Back in the days, I remember seeing some campaigns here and there with some graphic pictures, but I assumed they had just picked the worst of the worst, and that it probably was some kind of scare tactics. But then when I got my dog, I became much more receptive to that kind of stuff. It's pathetic that it didn't happen before, that I needed to love in that way to get it, but I think many people had either a child or animal who changed them emotionally to care more for others. And not to be cynical, but it looks like every celebrity starts caring about the environment, starving kids etc. as soon as the become parents. It's like all of that didn't matter before. But, hey, better late than never....

I guess my point is - what doesn't affect some people today might have an huge impact on them tomorrow.... Things just have to hit them in the right moment in life.

[Mahk]

I did - I became vegan (after being veggie for a long time) after watching all the videos on PeTA TV. Don't remember why I began watching them in the first place, but they sure as hell convinced me I should stop eating dairy - I didn't have a clue all that stuff was going on. So I wouldn't dismiss them a priori and think no-one is influenced by them, because i certainly was.

+1 . Me too.
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Also two extra points to tell fences sitters watching this video [thanks Sarabi], contemplating becoming a vegan, is that the paste that comes out of the cockerel (male chicks) grinding machine isn't just thrown away, it is mixed with other animal feed and is sometimes fed back to their own mothers as food! [That's just wrong.] This is why some PC eggs are labeled "vegetarian feed". The hens at that farm aren't eating their own children, however the farm still makes this paste and sells it to other farms. They only need to keep like one in a hundred cockerels for later sperm production where the hens are artificially inseminated, the other 99% have no other value. Also to clarify a point made in the video, even if they did raise them to adulthood for food they are genetically simply the wrong kind of chicken to sell as meat, they aren't "broilers" as they call them; they are too scrawny.

Just like in the movie Chicken Run, when the mother hens' egg production dwindles, usually in 2-5 years , a fraction of their natural lifetimes, the are sent to "the chop" and their poor meat quality bodies are used in frozen chicken pot pies, like Swanson, labeled as "mechanically separated chicken".

[Ms_Derious]

Mahk - Thanks for those details. They made my stomach lurch, but all things I can use in explaining to people why I have my diet choices (apparently 'because I don't want to hurt others creatures and I don't want to damage the planet isn't enough')

Its good to hear the videos do work for some people. I became vegetarian and then vegan by other routes, so I didn't know if they helped others on their path. If they do, than they are a good thing.