Switzerland-Lucerne Newspaper, 23.02.2022

97 percent of all laying hens have a broken sternum: X-rays with shock results!

Egg laying non-stop: The work of laying chickens has surprising consequences for the animals, as new analyzes by the University of Bern (Switzerland) show.

Organic hens from supermarket chain “Migros” and “Coop” are also affected, as reported by “K-Tipp” (a Swiss consumer magazine which is the magazine with the most readers in Switzerland. .

This result makes your egg stick in your throat: researchers from the University of Bern regularly X-rayed 150 laying hens in Switzerland over a period of ten months to analyze the physical consequences of their egg production.

They came to the conclusion that 97 percent of the animals had a broken sternum.
This is reported by the “K-Tipp” in its current issue.

On average, each chicken had three broken bones – in some animals it was as many as eleven.
According to the consumer magazine, the problem is not new, but the results indicated that it is bigger than previously known.
In earlier studies, for example, many fractures went undetected because the researchers only felt the bones and did not X-ray them.

Water with painkillers

That’s what Michael Toscano, head of the Center for Animal Welfare at the University of Bern, suspects.
“You often don’t see the pain in the chickens.
Nevertheless, there is evidence that a condition is present: Hens with broken bones move less.
They take longer to get off their perches.
And they choose to drink water that contains painkillers more often,” Toscano told “K-Tipp”.

According to the University of Bern, there are various reasons for the fractures.
But it is clear that the bones of the overbred chickens are brittle.

On average, a laying hen produces 323 eggs – almost one egg a day.
Chickens get the calcium they need for eggshells from their own bones.
The assumption of veterinarians is that the bones do not regenerate this calcium completely and therefore become porous.

Worldwide suffering

According to the report, it is also possible that some animals start laying eggs too early when their bones are not yet developed.
With the result that just a violent flapping of the wings or a collision with the perch causes the breastbone to crack.

Hanno Würbel, Professor of Animal Welfare at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Bern, criticizes sharply the situation:
“With today’s keeping and breeding of chickens, pain and suffering for many animals is inevitable.
And that’s just not sustainable.”

The extent of suffering is enormous worldwide.

According to Würbel, almost all laying hens used in Switzerland are affected in all forms of husbandry, including free-range and organic farms that are sold in Swiss supermarkets.

The Swiss supermarket chain “Migros” only tells the magazine that the issue affects the entire industry.
She does not want to comment further on the broken bones.

According to the report, egg producers around the world keep the same high-performance breeds.
Their breeding is therefore in the hands of a few corporations such as the German EW Group or the Dutch Hendrix Genetics.

They are currently trying to breed hens that are less prone to fractures.
The federal government and the egg producers are also counting on this.

Low alternative offer

Instead, the animal protection organization recommends switching to dual-purpose chickens, which provide meat as well as eggs.
These lay 70 to 100 fewer eggs per year and are therefore likely to be significantly less affected by fractures.

However, of the 3.4 million laying hens in Switzerland today, just under 20,000 are dual-purpose chickens.

https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/neue-studie-roentgenbilder-mit-schock-resultat-97-prozent-aller-legehennen-haben-ein-gebrochenes-brustbein-ld.2254714

And I mean…Almost 70 percent of all “farm animals” in Switzerland are chickens.
After fish, chickens are the animals we kill the most every year-worldwide.

The strongest intensification has taken place in poultry fattening. Approximately 63% of the chickens in Germany live in huge halls with up to 6,000 animals.
High-performance breeds are bred to lay a particularly large number of eggs in a short period of time.
After about a year, the animals are so exhausted that they can no longer perform well and are killed.

At the end of their lives, the animals are severely weakened by their cruel life, have an inflamed cloaca and almost no feathers left, partly because they peck at each other due to the poor keeping conditions.
They are kept in confined spaces, often without natural light, and live in cramped stalls on their own dung.

Male chicks must be discarded because they don’t lay eggs and weren’t bred to put on a lot of meat in a short amount of time—and so aren’t profitable.
Every year in the EU, more than 300 million chicks are crushed alive in a shredder or gassed immediately after hatching.
In Switzerland alone there are 2.3 million annually.

At the age of 12-15 months, the animals are slaughtered and often still marketed as soup chickens, turkeys are 3-4 months old at the time of slaughter..
When the chickens are caught, panic often breaks out in the coop, and many chickens are injured or suffocate under their own kind.

The brutal egg industry is responsible for massive animal suffering and apparently this is not uncommon and not country-related.

Dead hens, inflamed cesspools, broken legs and bones, bare pecked animals and wrongly declared eggs, the egg industry is gambling away a cruel reality with rosy advertising promises of allegedly happy chickens.

The global chicken business is a bad thing.
Locked up by the thousands in a very small space, the suffering of these animals bred for maximum performance never ends.
Using animals as disposable goods is unethical and reprehensible.

The tragic irony is that none of this all is actually necessary – because there are plenty of alternatives.
Good food is also possible without eggs, without meat, without animal products, i.e. without animals having to suffer and die for our food.

My best regards to all, Venus

Zurich, February 28, 2022 – Today the National Council adopted a motion for an import ban on foie gras produced in a cruelty-free manner.
The international animal protection organization FOUR PAWS welcomes the decision of the National Council: Millions of geese and ducks suffer every year from the brutal force feeding, a procedure that has long been banned in Switzerland.

FOUR PAWS is now calling on the Council of States to follow the National Council and put an end to the import of this cruelty-free animal product.

With 119 votes to 61 and 0 abstentions, the National Council unequivocally accepted the motion for an import ban on foie gras and thus made its position on the cruel practice of foie gras clear.
We are delighted with this consistent decision.

The production of foie gras has been banned in Switzerland for 40 years, but not in France, Bulgaria or Hungary, for example.

Netherless: Almost 200 tons of foie gras are imported into Switzerland every year, making it one of the world’s largest importers of this product, which is considered a delicacy.

There, young geese and ducks are still being cruelly stuffed with food using metal tubes several times a day until their livers swell to ten times their normal size, which is associated with enormous pain.

We firmly hope that the Council of States will also agree to the import ban.

“The practice of force fattening used to produce foie gras violates Swiss animal welfare standards.
Banning animal cruelty in this country and importing it instead is hypocritical.
It’s time to end this double standard.
We are pleased that politicians have recognized this,” explains Livie Kundert, campaigner at FOUR PAWS Switzerland.

In reality, before being slaughtered at around three months of age, ducks suffer throughout their short lives. In their first weeks of life they are mutilated:
To avoid injury, their beak tips are burned off and their claws removed.
Their biological needs are completely ignored, they do not get access to a body of water.

They are then stuffed for two weeks, which means that twice a day, up to 1kg of maize mash is stuffed down their esophagus in three seconds.
This cruel procedure leads to injuries, most of which are fatal. The animals become obese, unable to breathe and move properly before they are finally slaughtered.

The motion submitted was supported by members of the National Council across party lines. Martina Munz, National Councilor, pointed out to FOUR PAWS the immense animal suffering in the production of foie gras:
“Foie gras is not a staple food, it is a luxury product that is cruel to animals, like snakeskin. Let’s put an end to suffering. Not only the production, but also the import should be prohibited.”

The Green National Councilor Meret Schneider was particularly bothered by the Swiss double standards: “Praising the local animal protection law and at the same time importing animal products is hypocritical and disadvantages our agriculture.”

FOUR PAWS is now calling on the Council of States to follow the National Council and advocate an import ban on foie gras. With this, Switzerland would make history and set an international example for higher animal welfare standards.

https://www.presseportal.ch/de/pm/100004691/100885721

https://www.facebook.com/SentienceCH/

And I mean…40 years of force fattening ban in Switzerland and yet the import is booming with 200 tons of foie gras import!!

A nationwide representative survey by FOUR PAWS revealed that 74% of the Swiss population oppose the cruelty to animals and are in favor of an import ban of such products.

Force-feeding is a particularly cruel form of animal cruelty. However, that doesn’t mean that animal husbandry without force-feeding isn’t cruel.
Animal products always mean exploitation, suffering and murder.

To put an end to this there must be an EU-wide ban on the production and sale of foie gras.

The European Parliament has declared in a new report that the production of foie gras meets animal welfare requirements, having called for a ban on force-feeding eigt months earlier as it is considered “cruel and unnecessary”.

They are proving once again whose interest MPs represent when, just eight months after the June 2021 resolution calling for a ban on foie gras production, they vote for a report endorsing this cruel practice!

We call on every consumer of animal products to stop participating in the exploitation of animals and to leave all animals off their plates

My best regards to all, Venus

New York (USA) – It was a last-minute rescue when this little calf suddenly decided to flee during transport in New York.
The Hereford cow, which was only nine months old, was actually supposed to be taken to a slaughterhouse.
But as if it had suspected something, the animal escaped and ran straight into Flushing Meadows Park in the New York borough of Queens.

Park rangers who spotted the free-roaming cow in the park in the middle of the city called the police.
This was later announced by a special unit of the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Twitter.

Stacy

The rangers quickly caught the calf and, together with the police officers, took care of finding a new home for the young animal.
They christened the cow Stacy and contacted Wantage, New Jersey Animal Rescue.
She immediately made her way to New York to pick up the foundling.

In their Twitter post, NYPD police officers spoke of a “sentimental mood” among the rangers.
And Mike Stura, the founder of the animal rescue that Stacy eventually took on, described the rescue to World Animal News (WAN) magazine as particularly heartwarming.
It was very emotional to see how happy the rangers and police officers were and how they smiled when the calf was safe.

And Stacy?
After her fateful escape from the slaughterhouse, she found a new, loving home.
“The little one is safe with us. Today is a very good day,” the animal rescue team posted on Facebook shortly afterwards.
Right from the start, rescuers found Stacy to be an exceptionally calm and lovable calf.Stacy

After about ten days of quarantine, during which Stacy was examined and cared for, she was finally allowed to join the other cows on the farm – and immediately made new friends.
The calf is perfectly healthy and can now enjoy life to the fullest

Around 450 animals live at the animal rescue.
They have all been rescued by animal rights activists from slaughterhouses, from cattle markets or farms, from extreme neglect and abuse, from religious ceremonies or from the streets, as the organization describes on its website.

Nice that the clever calf from New York has found a new home here. (iwe)

https://www.hna.de/welt/rettung-zuhause-kuh-kalb-hereford-entwischt-weg-schlachthaus-schlachter-tod-polizei-new-york-usa-nypd-zr-91367036.html

There is still… the good news!
All the best in your new home Stacy, we wish you a long life

regards, Venus