Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry [Paperback]

Karen Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

This book ignites a new understanding of poultry industry abuses. Citing research from poultry industry publications and studies, Davis builds a chilling account of a morally handicapped industry driven over the edge. The techniques and attitudes that produce suffering in chickens and disease in humans are carefully examined.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Former English professor Davis is founder and president of the nonprofit organization United Poultry Concerns. After introducing readers to a brief history of poultry farming and the natural and social lives of chickens, Davis focuses on the egg and broiler industries, primarily in the United States. This is followed by a chapter on slaughter, which provides more gruesome detail than some readers will find comfortable. In the final chapter, vegetarianism, especially veganism, is promoted as the only effective solution. As one might guess from the title, chickens are considered from an animal-rights perspective, and this publication is intended as a consciousness-raising expose of what Davis sees as a cruel, obscene, and morally handicapped industry. There is not much new here, but the author does a good job of drawing from a wide variety of poultry science, animal-rights and other literature, including Page Smith and Charles Daniel's marvelous The Chicken Book (LJ 7/75), to make her case. For animal rights collections and curious patrons who wonder where their eggs and chicken nuggets really come from.?William H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Many Americans have made the choice to eat less red meat. For some, it is simply a health decision; others are choosing to become vegetarians for ethical reasons. Another factor is that books such as Jeremy Rifkin's Beyond Beef (1992) have exposed unsanitary processing conditions and alerted readers to the environmental consequences of raising and maintaining large cattle herds. Davis now targets those who eat chicken, turkey, or eggs with her scathing indictment of the poultry industry. She is president of United Poultry Concerns, an animal rights and animal welfare advocacy group, and she has previously written a vegetarian cookbook, Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey (1993), featuring "alternatives to traditional poultry and egg recipes." Upbraiding those who breed and raise poultry, Davis documents the inhumane conditions of factory farming, explicitly detailing the lives and deaths of battery hens raised in tiered brooding trays and of broiler chickens. She also charges that so-called free-range chickens fare no better. Bolstered by unyielding conviction, Davis argues her case with passion. David Rouse

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Book Publishing Company (TN); 1 edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570670323
• ISBN-13: 978-1570670329
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,987,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KAREN DAVIS, PhD is the founder and president of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. Founded in 1990, United Poultry Concerns addresses the treatment of domestic fowl in food production, science, education, entertainment, and human companionship situations. Karen has a PhD in English from the University of Maryland-College Park where she taught for twelve years in the English Department.

Karen Davis has essays in Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Duke UP, 1995), Terrorists or Freedom Fighters: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern Books, 2004), Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Studies Journal Vol. 2, No. 2 (Center on Animal Liberation Affairs, 2005), and Encyclopedia of Animals and Humans (Greenwood, 2007). Her essay 'Procrustean Solutions to Animal Identity and Welfare Problems' is forthcoming in a collection published by SUNY Press.

At the University of Maryland Karen founded the Animal Rights Coalition in 1989, and she pioneered a course on the role of animals in the Western philosophic and literary tradition in the University of Maryland Honors Program. Karen is a featured speaker at the annual National Animal Rights and Taking Action for Animals conferences in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. On July 2, 2002, Karen was inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame 'for outstanding contributions to animal liberation.'

On November 14, 1999, Karen Davis was profiled in 'For the Birds,' in The Washington Post, winner of the 1999 Ark Trust Genesis Award for Outstanding Newspaper Feature for 1999 (www.upc-online.org/991114wpost_karen_davis.html).

On November 14, 2000, Karen and United Poultry Concerns were featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Primetime TV show Witness, in 'Chickens are People Too,' produced by the Emmy-winning filmmaker, John Kastner. In 2002 Karen gave a presentation on 'The Beauty, Dignity & Abuse of Chickens' at the Yale University Chicken Conference, May 17-19.

On April 20, 2007, media celebrity Ira Glass, host of the popular Public Radio International program This American Life aired on NPR, appeared on Late Night with David Letterman where he told Letterman and millions of viewers that his visit to United Poultry Concerns' chicken sanctuary in 1998 led him to become a vegetarian. Karen Davis and UPC's sanctuary are currently featured in two major films on DVD: The Emotional World of Farm Animals narrated by Jeffrey Masson & frequently aired on NPR; and Animal People: The Humane Movement in America produced by Gary Kaskel and United Action for Animals in 2007.

Since 1999, Karen and UPC have hosted eight annual conferences on farmed animal advocacy issues. March 24-25, 2007. In March 2008, Karen and UPC hosted a conference on farmed animal and vegetarian advocacy issues in Virginia.

Karen is the author of several books including A Home for Henny (a children's book published by UPC); Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless 'Poultry' Potpourri (a cookbook published by the Book Publishing Co.); Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Book Publishing Co.); More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Lantern Books); and The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities (Lantern Books). The New Revised Edition of Karen's landmark book Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs will be out in 2009.

www.upc-online.org/karenbio.htm
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Inside Look at Inexcusable Atrocities, October 6, 2004

By 

CreepyT "CreepyTendencies" (Colorado, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Paperback)

Dr. Karen Davis postulates "[c]an one regard a fellow creature as a property item, an investment, a piece of meat, an `it,' without degenerating into cruelty and dishonesty towards that creature? Human slavery was brutal. Does anyone really believe that nonhuman slavery operates on a higher plane?"

The first portion of this very important book beckons the reader to view chickens as more than mere food, more than simply an aspect of agribusiness, but rather sentient beings capable of a wide range of emotions not too different from our own. Davis accomplishes this by incorporating various personal stories and anecdotes regarding her own chickens, as well as quotations from other chicken owners and those who have visited slaughter houses and hatcheries first hand.

After making this key point, the reader is treated to the appallingly repulsive goings-on at hatcheries and slaughter houses, as well as other malevolent profanities we humans put chickens through so we can continue to eat "well." Davis describes in excruciating, brutally honest detail the horrid environment in which chickens (particularly egg-laying) spend their lives, in their entirety. This lack of a proper, more naturalized, environment leads to disease and malnutrition in these chickens, as well as "cannibalistic" behavior (in actuality a manifestation of their natural pecking instinct), which in turn lead to hideous vaccination and de-beaking processes. Furthermore, the actual process of slaughter is described in meticulous detail, including electrocution, gassing, and neck-slicing (all of which most chickens are still alive for). In addition, it isn't exactly news that broiler chickens are being genetically "engineered" to have larger breasts in order to enlarge profits, and that these chickens frequently suffer ill effects such as broken legs and orthopedic disorders.

If the atrocities that chickens experience aren't enough to spur the reader into disgusted amazement, Davis points out ill effects for humans as well. For example, uric acid from the fecal matter abundant in the close confines of egg-laying hens releases ammonia into the atmosphere, which has been shown to absorb into the eggs slated for human consumption. Not to mention the illnesses and diseases running rampant in chickens that still find their way onto dinner tables across the globe. Is ignorance really bliss, or would you prefer to be enlightened as to what exactly goes into the chicken contents of canned soup, school lunches, pet food, and chicken nuggets?

By the end of this book, Davis is stating that vegetarianism, or more specifically veganism, is the answer to the aforementioned problems. Though that may seem extreme for most people, Davis does make a thorough and well-researched argument.

Though most of this information is somewhat dated (most data coming from 1995), the issue is no less pertinent. I would, however, be curious to see more recent data. This is a book everyone should read before their next flesh-devouring feast. Indeed, non-human slavery should not operate on a higher plane, and it would seem that there are those who need to be reminded of this.

49 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ralph Nader said one couldn't stop all the suffering..., December 27, 1999

By 

Faye Ferrall (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Paperback)

but, "you could reduce it." Karen Davis is commended for the passion and dedication she shows when taking on the topic of poultry production. This book opens our eyes to the truth about just what animal suffering and environmental degradation goes into that chicken soup. No educational program is complete without a course in modern food production...not the side presented by the factory farming industry, but by those who have a different slant. Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs shows us what the poultry producers don't want us to see. A must read for those who want to know how to change the world, for those who wish to "reduce the suffering."ÿ

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A frighteningly accurate portrayal, July 13, 2000

By 

"ewrigh2" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Paperback)

I bought Karen Davis' book at the Vegetarian Summerfest 2000, an event from which omnivores and herbivores alike can gain a lifetime worth of empowerment. I read her book in two days, despite the density of information within. Inspired, curious, and horrified, I checked out the University of Georgia's poultry science department and the local Goldkist "processing" plant (more accurately referred to as a slaughterhouse), and found them to boast of the same atrocities Dr Davis had rightly condemned. It's a must-read!