Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (REVISED ED) |  | Author: Karen Davis
Publisher: Book Publishing Company (TN)
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Seller: brinksthinks
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 961879
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 1570672296
Dewey Decimal Number: 636.50896
EAN: 9781570672293
ASIN: 1570672296
Publication Date: March 10, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Karen Davis wrote Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs in the mid-1990s to focus attention on the billions of chickens buried alive on factory farms. The book was a catalyst for animal rights activists seeking to develop effective strategies to expose and relieve the plight of chickens. United Poultry Concerns campaign in the 1990s to reveal the U.S. egg industry s cruel practice of starving hens to force them to molt their feathers and cut the cost of egg production was decisive in shifting advocacy attention to chickens and the hidden causes of Salmonella and Campylobacter food poisoning. This new edition documents what has happened since the book first appeared the waging of high-profile campaigns to get rid of battery cages for laying hens, undercover investigations exposing the appalling cruelty to chickens and turkeys by poultry industry workers, globalization of chicken production and its effect on the environment and spread of avian influenza, and how farm animal sanctuaries have become key players in debunking industry myths with truthful accounts of the sensitive and intelligent birds being brutalized in the name of food. It also effectively explains why these birds are so ill, why eating them makes people sick, and what can be done to cure the pathology of the modern poultry industry.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Arguing for a more vegetarian world May 11, 2009
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
Chickens are one of the world's most embraced food animals, but the modern handling of them could make their tasty flesh not so sweet. Now in a newly updated and expanded revised edition, "Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry" is an exploration of how chickens are handled in today's livestock farms. Focusing on the imporatnce of animal rights as well as environmental concerns, author Karen Davis calls out the industry as cruel and wasteful, and possibly endangering the world's chicken eaters. Arguing for a more vegetarian world, "Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs" is an intriguing look at the world of modern chicken farming.
Powerful, thoroughly researched indictment of the poultry industry May 4, 2009
Mark Hawthorne (Rohnert Park, CA United States)
It seems more people than ever are talking about chickens, and I love it. From California's Proposition 2 -- which will, among other things, ban the use of battery cages for egg production in the state -- to undercover investigations inside factory farms, there's never been a larger spotlight focused on the US poultry industry. And trust me, they hate it.
Much of the credit for this, I think, goes to Karen Davis, who founded an advocacy group for chickens and turkeys, United Poultry Concerns, in 1990. Few people have done as much as Karen to raise awareness about the plight of birds people want to eat. She is one of those tireless activists many of us wish we could be like: a consistent, well-informed, dedicated voice who never seems to miss an opportunity to speak up for animals. Take International Respect for Chickens Day, for example. Karen launched this annual event four years ago to celebrate chickens throughout the world and protest the bleakness of their lives in farming operations.
A considerable amount of her activist time is engaged in writing, and Karen's latest effort is a complete revision of her book "Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs," first published 13 years ago. This is without a doubt one of the most important books an animal advocate can read. Not only is it critical for activists to be up to date on issues involving animal cruelty, but chickens are by far the most abused beings in animal agribusiness -- indeed, Karen describes them as "creatures of the earth who no longer live on the land" -- making it even more essential that we're able to speak from a place of knowledge in order to defend them.
The statistics regarding humanity's abuse of chickens are staggering, as Karen observes in the book's preface:
"While much has happened since 'Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs' first appeared in 1996, little has changed for the chickens themselves, except that their lives have become, as a global phenomenon, even more miserable. Instead of 7.5 billion chickens being slaughtered in the mid-1990s in the United States, nearly 10 billion chickens are now being slaughtered, with parallel rises in other countries reflecting the expansion of chicken consumption and industrialized production into Latin America, China, India, Africa, Russia, Mexico, and elsewhere. Throughout the world, over 40 billion chickens are now being slaughtered for meat each year, and over 5 billion hens are in battery cages, many of them in egg-production complexes holding up to a million or more birds."
Covering the history, lives, and deaths of chickens, Karen explains how poultry farming grew from a relatively small endeavor (in 1830, the average US farm had only 23 chickens) into a global, mass-production enterprise that has invented such miseries as "debeaking" (cutting two-thirds of the beak from an egg-laying hen's face without pain relief); cramming hens into battery cages so they can barely move; bleeding out birds who are still conscious; forced molting, during which a hen is starved for up to two weeks; a host of infectious diseases, routinely combated with heavy doses of antibiotics; transporting birds, many of them now missing wings or legs, long distances without food or water; and the callous extermination of hundreds of millions of male chicks in the egg industry each year, to name but a few.
This is a well-documented indictment of the poultry industry and what can only be called its *contempt* for the very birds it relies on to make a profit. I don't know what other word to use to describe a business that would let a laying hen whose egg production has declined starve in the last days of her life just to save the farmer a few pennies in feed. That's some thanks to a sentient animal who has endured 17 to 24 months crammed into a battery cage and denied nearly every natural instinct. As Karen notes, factory farmers have become adept at defending themselves, even to the point of being ridiculous. "The egg industry thinks nothing of claiming that a mutilated hen in a cage is 'happy,' 'content,' and 'singing,'" she writes, "yet will turn around and try to intimidate you with accusations of 'anthropomorphism' if you logically insist that the hen is miserable."
One of the characteristics of Karen's books I've always appreciated is her considerable talent as a writer. It can be challenging to transform a vast amount of research and information into a readable narrative, and Karen does it with such style that her books never read like dull, academic texts. Moreover, it is clear that she regards fowl as very special creatures. Karen has devoted her life to them, and, in addition to her outreach efforts, she provides a home to many chickens, turkeys, and other birds rescued from avian concentration camps. This book is obviously a labor of love.
Chickens have been labeled cowardly and "bird-brained," but Karen debunks these myths with examples demonstrating their courage and intelligence. For instance, she writes that "Far from being 'chicken,' roosters and hens are legendary for bravery.... Our tiny Bantam rooster, Bantu, would flash out of the bushes and repeatedly attack our legs, his body tense, his eyes riveted on our shins, lest we should threaten his beloved hens."
Though Karen encourages readers to visit factory farms and see what goes on behind closed doors, the reality is few of us will ever have the opportunity to venture inside the houses of horror in which "broiler" chickens are raised for meat or hens are confined to produce eggs. Fortunately, she is able to guide us through these animal factories, explaining in great detail precisely what goes on inside, and that knowledge not only solidifies our commitment to protecting animals, but it aids our ability to effectively communicate, making our activism much more powerful.
With the world alert to the threat of a pandemic flu virus, as well as concerns about food safety, global warming, genetic engineering, and the growing taste for "healthier" animal flesh, there's never been a better time to pick up a copy of "Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs."
Essential reading April 10, 2009
C. Druce (UK)
An outstanding exposé of modern intensive poultry production. The author displays a respectful,tender appreciation of the birds she writes about, yet unflinchingly takes the reader through every abusive aspect of industrialised chickens' lives, frequently quoting from reserach by the world's leading poultry scientists. The deprivation Dr Davis describes is all the more poignant in the light of her accounts of birds' intelligence, the devotion shown to their young and their undoubted capacity for enjoyment, given a natural environment.
She tells how the mother hen communicates with chicks still in the shell, and how later she'll periodically shelter them under her wings for up to eight weeks - longer than the entire "lifespan" of a modern broiler chicken. Davis writes of ancestral memory, citing research indicating that in battery cages hens go through the motions of dustbathing (vacuum dustbathing)on the bare wire of the cage floor, so dispelling the myth that "what they've never known they don't miss".
Veterinarians, poultry industrialists and yes, physicians too (in the USA, livestock account for 70% of all antimicrobial use) would do well to read this painstakingly researched book.
For the activist, it provides an invaluable tool.
The Case for Chicken Rights March 31, 2009
Harold Herzog (Cullowhee, NC)
Chickens don't get no respect.... But the fact is that the suffering of commercially raised poultry is the world's largest animal welfare problem. And because the demand for chicken meat and eggs continues to rise at an astounding rate, the problem is getting worse rather than better. For every baby seal that is clubbed to death, 30,000 chickens will die in the United States; for every dog euthanized in an animal shelter, 3,000 chickens will die; for every animal used in a biomedical experiment, 150 chickens will die; and for every game rooster that dies in cockfight, 9,000 commercial broilers will be killed for the culinary pleasure of Americans. Further, in the United States, commercially raised chickens, turkeys, and ducks are excluded from coverage under either the Animal Welfare Act or the Humane Slaughter Act.
In the newly revised edition of Prisoned Chicken, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry, Karen Davis provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the poultry industry, a natural history of chickens, and a scathing critique of the ways that broiler chickens and battery hens live and die on modern factory farms. The new edition contains hundreds of new references and current information on the bird flu epidemic, genetic engineering of poultry, the expansion of the chicken industry, global warming, and recent changes in the rearing and processing of commercial poultry.
While, as the title suggests, this is a book of animal advocacy, the information is up to date and accurate. Davis, who runs an animal shelter for poultry, is director of United Poultry Concerns. She has spent over 20 years tirelessly arguing that chickens merit our moral concern.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the contentious debate over the use of animals. But be careful -- this book could change your life. That's what happened to Ira Glass, host of the National Public Radio show This American Life. He traveled to Davis' poultry sanctuary in Virginia to play the "chicken rights lady" for laughs on his radio show. But few years later, he admitted to David Letterman, she got the last laugh. "I became a vegetarian because of that woman," he said.
The same is true of her book.
 Okay July 31, 2007
Linda L. Noland
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The author is very knowledgeable about the subject but she sees chickens as human beings which will be a point of view that her readers may not share. However, it is sad and unhealthy that chickens are treated so badly.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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