Crunching Numbers | 140

The number of battery-caged hens who were destined for slaughter, rescued by Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Food Animals (CEFTA)

["Numbers rule the universe," Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras said. For the month of May, 13.7 Billion Years will reprise the theme from September 2010, presenting a new number to think about each weekday with the series Crunching Numbers.]

"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." -- Albert Schweitzer

"The hens had spent more than a year crammed into battery cages—these are barren wire cages so small the birds can’t even spread their wings," writes Laura Simpson on Care2. "The [rescued] hens were given a second chance at life and are now able to stretch their wings and legs, have dustbaths, preen and feel the sun on their backs and the grass beneath their feet."

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) notes that caged hens "suffer from the denial of many natural behaviors such as nesting, perching, and dustbathing, all important for hen welfare. Numerous scientists and other experts [PDF] have spoken clearly about the animal welfare problems with battery cages. One such scientist, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Konrad Lorenz, said:

'The worst torture to which a battery hen is exposed is the inability to retire somewhere for the laying act. For the person who knows something about animals it is truly heart-rending to watch how a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her fellow cagemates to search there in vain for cover.'"

Watch the video showing the first tentative steps taken by the rescued hens.



ACTION ALERTS

• Thinking about a diet that doesn't mean killing animals? Get a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit and take the "Pledge to Be Vegan for 30 Days" (PETA)
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PAST SERIES

• Ars Animalis: Looking at animals throughout the history of art
• Women's History Month: Remembering 22 women in science
• Purity Month: Looking at 100%
• Instead of This, Try This: Starting the new year with change
• Victory Month: Celebrating positive change through grassroots action
• Of Rice and Men: Cooking the world's most important grain for human nutrition
• 21 Days, 21 Reasons, 21 Recipes, 21 Quotes: Eating plants, loving animals
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog: Considering man's best friend
• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religion
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future

image: An Anopheles stephensi mosquito is obtaining a blood meal from a human host through its pointed proboscis. Note the droplet of blood being expelled from the abdomen after having engorged itself on its host’s blood. This mosquito is a known malarial vector with a distribution that ranges from Egypt all the way to China. (credit: CDC, Wikimedia Commons)