Waiheke Island Animal Rights / Brown Produce, Nixon, Texas / Animal Transportation and Cruelty / -

Cruelty when and where?

At about 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday 27th July 1999 while driving eastwards along Interstate 20 from Monroe in Louisiana to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

What cruelty?

One of the most disturbing cases of cruelty to animals in general, and of the inhumane transportation of those animals in particular, that I have ever witnessed.  Truly disgusting!

So, more specifically, what?

Well, there was I, happily cruising along with a good friend and thoroughly enjoying a first ever visit to Louisiana, when -- whoooosh! -- we were suddenly overtaken at speed by one of those huge eighteen wheeled semi-trailer rigs.  Nothing unusual about that, I guess, even though we were already cruising at the legal speed limit ourselves.  Happens all the time, eh?  Anyway, what was not so common was that this particular transporter was open-sided and jampacked full of wind battered white chickens -- hundreds, or possibly thousands, of the poor things -- all hunkered down in their tight little wire cages with absolutely no protection from a hot and violent slipstream.  Yes, it certainly was a very hot Louisiana morning and that damned transporter was holding to a steady 85 m.p.h., leaving a whirlwind trail of pathetic little ripped-off feathers flying in its wake.  How did we know our truckie was powering along at 85 m.p.h.?  Simply because we had to break the legal speed limit ourselves in order to stay with him and get a positive Brown Produce ID plus photograph.

These chickens were laying hens, by the way, for there were eggs in the cages with them.  So the setup was more or less just a high speed mobile battery and I've never ever seen living hens looking so utterly broken and miserable.  In fact, I became utterly miserable myself, and very angry at Brown Produce too, just from seeing those poor birds suffering so.