Various stakeholders in Zambia have condemned the practice of drowning or gassing day old chicks, instead proposing that the excess chicks should be donated or sold at lower prices to vulnerable societies of communities.
Zambian Business Times – ZBT received various concerned citizens who sent in their notes and emails stating that it’s a disturbing and wasteful practice, which has its roots in the warped economics of chicken production. They have called on the Zambian Government to do something to end the wastefulness and disturbing practice.
Following an outcry from members of public on that practice, a check carried out by ZBT with animal welfare organisations in Zambia revealed that these organisations only focus on the welfare of cats and dogs. They could not even comment on this practice referring this matter to the ministry of Livestock.
The Poultry Association of Zambia – PAZ revealed that the cumulative number of day old chicks that the hatcheries have drowned in Zambia because of the reduced demand for the birds on the market is now over 1.1 million.
Drowning in the poultry industry means killing the chicks by drowning or gassing them to avoid spending on feed and running out of space. Some animal rights activists have attributed this practice to hard core capitalism.
For every new egg-laying hen born into today’s farming system, a male chick is killed or culled. This is a practice happening all over the world, as many as 300 million chicks are killed in the United States every year and more than 6 billion total are killed around the world. It is a disturbing and wasteful practice, which has its roots in the warped economics of chicken production.
At a global level, Animal welfare activists have been lobbying against male chick culling for instance in the United States for decades, chronicling cute and fuzzy day-old chicks who are gassed or macerated. In January 2020, the BBC reported that France had pledged to outlaw the practice of culling unwanted male chicks by the end of 2021, as part of animal welfare reforms.
The French government said new methods were emerging that would make it possible to test the sex of embryos inside the egg. While activists in the United States and other parts of the world have been lobbying against the practice of killing chicks and trying to find a solution to this problem, there seem to be no institution or non governmental organization that has taken up this role in Zambia.
Hatcheries in Zambia may not be drowning chicks for the same reasons as other countries but the act is something that should not be acceptable and scores of Zambians have condemned this act. It is further disappointing to learn that there are no known organizations in Zambia looking at the animal welfare societies have restricted their concerns to only cats and dogs.
