The spread of a highly pathogenic subtype of avian influenza on Hillgrove Egg Farm in rural Otago will resulted in the killing of 80,000 chickens beginning Wednesday 4 December,2024. The method was gassing. The property concerned has had its certification suspended and there is restricted access on and off the farm.

Two out of the four large barns have been confirmed as infected with the virus called H7N6. This is different from the H781 bird flu virus that has been responsible for the deaths of wild birds and mammals globally. Director-General of the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) Ray Smith has said that the strain is largely constrained to the poultry industry and is not a risk to wildlife. There is also low risk to human life from the virus, as while humans can be infected, it does not spread easily between them.

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This is a biosecurity incident and it is rightfully being taken seriously. Concerns for economic implications regarding exports are one worry. Consumers are also anxious that egg supply will be interrupted (it won’t apparently).

Yet, there is so much more to this than human-centred or industry concerns. New Zealand has a reputation for high animal welfare standards and yet these chickens were killed in one of the cruellest ways imaginable. Furthermore, this is a regular occurrence on farms in New Zealand. Biosecurity New Zealand deputy director-general Stuart Anderson said the animals would be ‘humanely culled’ (an oxymoron) with the farmer’s cooperation. Ray Smith was further quoted in media as saying: “Poultry farms are always having to depopulate and repopulate. They have large containers and they go into the containers and it is effectively a carbon dioxide process”

The killing of 80,000 live and sentient chickens is an ethical issue. Chickens are intelligent, feeling, problem-solving, walking, flapping marvels. It’s time that the implications for the chickens was given precedence over sunny side up eggs and capitalistic profits.

First up, how do you kill 80,000 birds in over three days with carbon dioxide? What are the methods of ‘humanely culling’ or ‘depopulation’? These are weasel words designed to distract and conceal a horrific process. Information on this requires a deep dive into the Code of Welfare: Layer Hens published by the MPI. Here I read about the acceptable methods for ‘humane destruction’ of hens according to MPI. This includes gassing the hens using a mixture of inert gases and/or carbon dioxide. It is called gas suffocation. I am quite perplexed as to the use of the word ‘humane’ when linked with the gassing method.

For disease control purposes, carbon dioxide (CO2) is often used in on farm killing of large groups of poultry, in both mobile gas container units and whole house gassing exercises. When using this gas the hens will asphyxiate within 30 minutes. They will experience breathlessness, hyperventilation and irritation of the nasal mucosa. Veterinarian Dr. Jonas Watson says that gassing is not a humane form of euthanasia. Dr Watson argues that gasses cause headshaking, gasping and convulsions in chickens prior to the cessation of brain activity.

Another potential issue is ensuring that all 80,000 chickens will die before being removed and dumped or buried alive. MPI says that all chickens need to be confirmed unconscious within 35 seconds of being exposed to the gas. I fail to see how all these 80,000 chickens can be monitored in this way, especially with the restricted access of people to this site.

The egg-laying industry is fraught with animal welfare issues even before any concerns about viruses or culling is mentioned. There is the shredding of 2.5 million day-old male chicks in a giant macerator, which is opposed by the SPCA. MPI endorses the immediate fragmentation/ maceration for unhatched eggs and day-old chicks in their Code of Welfare: Layer Hens. They also say that humane killing involves stringing spent hens up and then stunning them electrically, followed by neck dislocation and exsanguination (slitting their throats). I am sure we don’t have the same concept of what ‘humane’ means.

Colony cage hens are only given the size of an A4 piece of paper each and live in crowded and noisy sheds their entire lives. This is stressful and often leads to feather picking and cannibalism.

Reducing a living being’s entire life to a biological function is exploitative and cruel. One might even argue that is not a life worth living. Having rescued a small number of these chickens at eighteen months old when they went off the lay, I can testify to their dull eyes and featherless bodies. The picture below shows one of the chickens on the first day free from a cage. If not rescued, she was bound for slaughter.

Seriously, they don’t deserve this. No living and feeling creature should end their lives in such a cruel way. The only reason they are in this position is because they are being used to produce eggs for the egg industry.

It’s very easy to look the other way and not think about the lives of these animals. After all, they are tucked away from sight in windowless sheds. Yet, there are about 1.2 million colony caged chickens in New Zealand.

It’s not good enough, and we need to get into a flap about it.

We have known for a long time that the gassing of animals is a distressing way to go. We need to reevaluate our food systems and not subject living beings to this kind of torture. The mass factory farming of egg-laying chickens needs to stop.

Animals need to be given the same rights as humans, otherwise we are essentially just exploiting and harming animals using our greater power over them. This would mean a reorientation of how we live with our fellow Earth beings and how we operate economically and socially.

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