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Misplaced priorities?

In yesterday’s Orlando Sentinel, columnist Mike Thomas wrote about “our conflicted position on what we consider cruel.” He compared cockfighting to the factory farming of chickens and concluded that animals in both “die violently.” We agree.

In his column, Mr. Thomas provides an excellent summary of the life of “broiler” chickens (chickens raised for their flesh). He began by noting, “chickens are exempt from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act” and continued:

“The birds are crammed into huge warehouses, their beaks sometimes cut off to keep them from pecking at one another. They are packed into small cages, trucked to the slaughterhouse, snatched brutally by the legs and hung in shackles — often suffering broken bones. Then they are dragged through an electrical bath. This supposedly stuns them enough so the rotating blade that comes up next on the assembly line won’t miss their throats. Of course many still do squirm, the blades miss and so the birds proceed to the next step — getting dunked in boiling water — fully aware.”

If his point was that we should be more concerned with the suffering of chickens in farms, he may be right. (Unfortunately, despite his research, he wrote that he has not stopped eating chickens.)

Mr. Smith concluded the column by writing that he’d prefer death in a cockfight than at a slaughterhouse, “I can’t speak for the birds, but I’d rather go out fighting, with my blades flashing.” We might agree, but only if chickens in cockfighting pits could turn on the humans who brought them there.

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