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Many people seem to have the impression that meat of a bird is healthier than that of fellow mammals like cows and pigs, and therefore eating chicken preferentially. Also, these days there are people who avoid beef for environmental reasons, but continue to consume chicken, even though chicken clearly has significantly higher environmental impacts than plant protein. Chicken is as unhealthy as beef?! It’s fairly well-known that the red meat of cows and pigs leads to increased risks of cardiovascular diseases due to the saturated fat increasing LDL cholesterol. However, there wasn’t much research comparing this to chicken, until recently. *1 According to a survey funded by the U.S. National…
We’ve launched a petition to reduce the suffering of (broiler) chickens who are made into “Japanese chicken”. https://www.change.org/savechickens As a result of severe selective breeding for weight gain, 1/4 of the broilers are said to live under chronic pain 1/3 of their lives. Because they grow so fast, even if they aren’t slaughtered for meat, they are said to not live long. The chickens, who get killed only 40-50 days after birth, spend their entire lives inside. With their growing weights, the poultry shack becomes increasingly crowded, and their bodies get dirtier without being able to sandbathe. Like human children, young chickens love new interesting things. If they were to…
There are various support systems for the livestock industry implemented by the country, and one of them is the Comprehensive Subsidies for Developing Strong Agriculture & Leaders. As previously reported in another article, from 2018, when using this grant to establish a local meat production center (slaughterhouse for pigs, cattle, etc.), “consideration for animal welfare” has become required, and it has become necessary to install drinking water at the slaughterhouse, which ARCJ had been asking for. The vague phrase “consideration for animal welfare” is not specific and limits executive power. However, the addition of such item to the standards for the grant system is a step forward. But animal welfare…
One of the animal welfare indicators of broiler chicken production is FPD (Footpad Dermatitis). The rate of the FPD incidence indicates the quality of bedding, if there’s overcrowding, or if the strain* of broiler is appropriate or not.**A high rate of FPD has been reported in Japan. According to a survey on occurrence of FPD in broiler chicken production***, “FPD was observed in all groups that were investigated. In some groups, every single individual was confirmed to have FPD.” The causes for FPD include poor floor conditions and environments where birds are crammed together in one place. When FPD gets severe, birds have a hard time walking due to the pain, and suffer from stress and fever. In…
Companies that contributed to expanding animal welfare Animal Welfare Award (AWA) is an award annually* selecting and giving thanks to companies that consider animals and work on animal welfare in Japan which is lagging behind the world in terms of animal welfare for livestock and aquaculture animals. In the view of Animal Rights Center Japan that works to protect livestock animals in Japan, efforts resulting in the biggest impacts have been recognized. * The first round covers efforts from 2019 through March 2020. The Results
Say NO to Practice of Starving Animal to Death in Industry A broiler chicken company in Wakayama prefecture reportedly starved 140,000 chickens to death in 2020. The company belonged to the Arita Poultry Agricultural Cooperative. According to Wakayama prefecture, a chicken slaughterhouse owned by the same owner of this broiler chicken company went bankrupt first, which resulted in the inability to relocate the chickens , then starvation. They claimed they could not afford putting these chickens down, either. The prefecture didn’t step in to help euthanize the birds, either. And yet, the prefecture promptly executed an aid to clean up the corpses that cost approximately 100 million JPY, and handed…
Since 2016, Animal Rights Center Japan has been conducting a survey once a year using a private company to find out how much awareness there is about the actual rearing conditions of livestock animals. We have now conducted a survey for 2020, so will report the results. The questions are the following 10 items. Do you know that many of the mother pigs are confined in gestation stalls, small enclosures in which they can’t turn around? Do you know that many of the piglets are castrated and have their teeth and tails clipped without anesthesia? Do you know that many of the chickens for eggs are kept in metal wire…
HORIZON FARMS has made animal welfare declarations, one for stall-free in February, and then cage-free and better chicken in March. Horizon Farms, which has been procuring meat with commitment to animal welfare in rearing methods since its beginning, is a company that has always considered the inquiries of us animal protection groups seriously and thinks about what they can do for farm animals. The company, as noted on its website, only procures meat from farms that thoroughly take care of the reared animals. For this reason most is imported from overseas, but this time it will begin procuring cage-free eggs from a carefully selected domestic poultry farm; the triple declarations…
Broiler chickens — 700 million are killed every year within Japan alone. Nearly double if imports are included. Japanese chickens suffer from overcrowding. Poultry farms in Japan are 1.7 times denser than in the EU and 1.8 times denser than in Brazil. While Thailand and other countries are improving, Japan is not improving. Why? Because people living in Japan do not know anything. They haven’t even noticed that chicken farms for meat in Japan are much worse than the world standard. A number like 700 million may paralyze your senses. But can you not tell by looking at the individual face and the facial expressions? That he or she is…
No land animals are used as much as broiler chickens for meat. In Japan, 700 million chickens are raised per year. For this reason, improving situations for these animals would make a huge impact in terms of animal welfare. It is also important to take this issue seriously for our sustainable society since it is deeply connected to the issue of drug resistance. Many European companies signed up for the European Chicken Commitment. It was initiated by an animal welfare organization that set better standards for raising chickens. In the Commitment, various proposals are suggested to solve issues for chicken in light of animal welfare. Issue 1: TOO BIG. TOO…
There are various support systems for the livestock industry implemented by the country, but one of them is Comprehensive Subsidies for Developing Strong Agriculture & Leaders. As previously reported in another article, from 2018, when using this grant to establish a local meat production center (slaughterhouse), consideration for animal welfare has become required. In the case of implementing the maintenance of local meat centers among livestock product processing facilities, efforts shall be made to effectively utilize the recycling of slaughter residue, etc., and handle livestock in consideration of animal welfare. Although it is not specific, it was a step forward in animal welfare that such a sentence was added to…
Mother Sows in Captivity:sow stall in Japan A rearing method which has been illegalized in many countries is still used at more than 88% of pig farms in Japan. These are photos taken between 2015 and 2017 at Japanese hog raising farms. Sows are shut in a small cage called a sow stall (gestation create). Sows spend almost all of their entire life in a cage in which they cannot walk or turn. Sows engage in abnormal behaviors such as biting their cages, continuously doing chewing motions without food in their mouths, and drinking water without stopping. The EU banned sow stalls in 2013, and ten states in America have banned them.…
Chickens with red skin. This is a picture taken in 2017 in Japan. The reason why their skin gets red is because of the errors that take place at slaughterhouses. Their necks often don’t get slit properly, and as a result, the birds are boiled alive. In Japan, chickens with red skin like this are disposed as “chickens with failure of bleeding.” In other words, these are “accidents,” and the birds’ lives, sufferings, and pain get tossed away as though nothing occurred. What kind of pain? No Stunning Many slaughterhouses kill birds by slitting their throats without stunning by utilizing electronic shock or gas to knock out birds first in…
There are no holidays in animals. From Christmas to the end of the year, the sufferings of animals increase. Please spend an animal friendly holiday. Please remove animals from your table.Unfortunately this year the chicken consumption increased and the chicken suffering increased. This is because more people eat chicken meat due to health consciousness. The number of sacrifices of chickens that can only obtain only about 1500 g of meat from 1 bird is high. The volume of suffering is not proportional to the size of the body. If one is killed, one suffering will be born. Please count the number of chickens that you and your family have suffered…
A belief in safety of windowless poultry houses is widely accepted in Japan. However, it’s only a myth that bird flu can be prevented if contact with wild birds is prevented. It is true that some wild birds, out of dozens, who died in Japan carried bird flu, but bird flu of broiler chickens has not been prevented by cutting contact from wild birds through windowless poultry houses. See types of poultry houses in which bird flu was discovered here.(JP) And yet, the number of windowless poultry houses has been increasing because of this false belief. Poultry houses Open Semi-windowless Windowless total 2007 Number of poultry house 6,991…
Today, the methods of slaughtering chickens, whether they are for meat or eggs, are to hang them upside down in shackles. Then, they are put into an electrified water tank until unconscious, if they are lucky. Those unlucky ones get their throats (artery) slit while being conscious, bled to death, and then put into boiled water. In order to minimize the sufferings, they should be knocked unconscious or stunned by gas or electricity. Instead, chickens necks are cut without such procedures, then, electricity is used after, in order to let them bleed more or calm the chickens. In the EU, it’s not allowed to cut chickens’ necks without making them…
Chicken meat for chicken is shipped in 2kg in Europe and the United States, but do you know that it is shipped after thickening to about 3 kg in Japan? Originally, chicken is an animal that grows over 150 days, but broiler has been modified to grow larger in 50 days. They suffer from doing rapid growth.Broilers do not walk naturally. They walk a bit and then sit down. The chickens who lost their natural appearance spend a lot of time in pain, packed in a container after 50 days, being hung upside down, they are neck cut and killed. See detail about broiler (in Japanese) The density in japan…
The multi-partisan parliamentary group aiming for zero killing of dogs and cats has established a project team for amending the Animal Welfare Act. Since its launch on August 25, 2023, the PT has held 21 meetings to hear from stakeholders and deliberate on the direction of amendments. Out of these 21 sessions, however, only one touched on livestock animals, and just one on laboratory animals. Despite 1 billion livestock animals being killed annually, the issue remains far from the priorities of lawmakers. In the sole PT meeting addressing livestock, the discussions showed promise, but it is unlikely to expect significant amendments by 2025 at this rate. 17th PT: Hearings on…
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