A social experiment that gave Hyderabadis a taste of birds’ suffering in poultry farms

Before ordering a chicken dish in a restaurant or buying eggs, did you ever think of what the birds, raised primarily for the said reasons in poultry farms, go through? The unnatural and pathetic conditions they are kept under? How pullets are cramped inside small, wired cages, each with space less than an A4-size paper, to live in their own manure for life? These were some of the questions volunteers of

Vegan India Movement

posed to walkers at Dogs Park, Necklace Road, on Sunday morning as part of a unique social experiment, ‘Brave the Crate Challenge’, to spread awareness about the unethical treatment of birds and animals in dairy and poultry farms across the country.
It all began when the volunteers approached people walking their pets in the park and asked them to stand bare feet on an upturned plastic bottle crate for a minute. Why? “This experiment is part of a pan-Indian movement organised across 30 cities around the country. The aim is to highlight the plight of the chickens in the layer industry. We want people to experience the suffering birds go through when 8 to 10 fowls are cramped inside a small cage where they live for almost two years. Each chicken is condemned to live in a space, not bigger than the size of a tablet. Most people find standing barefoot on the crate very painful, but the chicken live like that every minute of their lives,” says

Sowmya Lakshmi

, one of the volunteers.
The focus was on the battery cages, a housing system used for egg-laying hens which restricts the birds’ natural movements and leaves them bleeding with sore, deformed feet because of their wired floors that cause life-threatening infections. Though the public were hesitant to take part in the experiment initially, things picked up as the volunteers started playing videos of atrocities being committed on birds and animals in poultry and dairy farms on tablets. “It is indeed painful to stand on the crate bare feet. This issue never crossed my mind until now. Though it’s going to be difficult to suddenly become a vegan just because I woke up to the issue today, I will try whatever I can to not contribute to this industry,” said 23-year-old Balu, adding, “I didn’t feel any pain for the first 30 to 40 seconds, then the pain kicked in thereafter.”
A survey conducted by an NGO across 20 poultry farms located in the outskirts of Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Haryana between August and December 2016 revealed that confinement of fowls in such cages led to mass deaths. “The problem here is the ignorance of the general public about such issues. The public awareness in metros like Hyderabad is slightly better thanks to the presence of vegan restaurants and awareness
programmes, such as these. Imagine how bad the scenario would be in non-metros and rural areas?” asks Dr

Mounika Bindu

, a radiologist with Osmania University, who took the challenge.
The point of organising the experiment in a dog park was to make people realise that dairy animals and fowls in poultry farms too are no different from their beloved pets and hence have a right to live and deserve to be treated better. “We also showed people videos how animals in animal husbandry and birds in the poultry farms too feel love and affection just like their beloved pets. They too can be petted, the same way. We want people to treat every animal or bird as an individual as they too have a right to live,” avers 29-year-old Sameer Mohammed, another volunteer, signing off.