October 9, 2016: No wonder chicken is one of favourites worldwide, I mean, the dishes prepared with chicken and not the bird. Well, after knowing a little more about the bird, maybe you would think twice before gulping them down!

If you think only cow or pig slaughter is bad, slaughtering of birds is even worse. These birds are tortured till deaths, as there are very little cruelty regulations in the factories. While some of the consumers take solace in an "organic" or "free-range", but the reality is 99.9 percent of the chickens raised in the United States come from the factory farms.

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Chicken is almost as intelligent as you are:

In an article in Scientific American,"The Startling Intelligence of the Common Chicken" says chickens are cunning, and they have communication skills on par with some primates. They use sophisticated signals to communicate with them. When making decisions, they take into consideration about prior experience depending on the situation. They also solve complex problems; empathize with individuals when they are in danger.
So, you were calling someone 'bird brain'?

High risk of human exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria:

Chickens are raised for their flesh and are fed large amounts of antibiotics and drugs so as to keep them alive in such conditions which would otherwise kill them.

Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) recent document is made available due to Freedom of Information Act request which revealed, "none of these [antibiotic feed additives] would likely be approvable … for … livestock use if submitted today, under current FDA guidelines. Eighteen of the 30 reviewed feed additives were deemed to pose a 'high risk' of exposing humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the food supply."

Your favorite chicken is scalded to death before it reaches your plate:

Seven weeks after the chickens are born; they are crowded into trucks and are transported in the slaughterhouse. Millions of chickens, every year have their wings and legs broken in this process. In all weather extremes, they are trucked and transported, sometimes even over hundreds of miles, often without food or water.
At the slaughterhouse, chickens are hung upside down and their throats slit, and are often scalded to death in the de-feathering tanks.

Chicken: The harmless creature is harmed the most:

Chickens spend their entire lives in filthy sheds with thousands of other birds, living in place less than the size of a sheet of paper. Intense crowding and confinement often lead to outbreaks of diseases. They often have trouble breathing and because they are often bred to have abnormally large breasts.

[bctt tweet="Eating chicken is equal to eating poop:" username="@newsgram1"]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study found, more than 99 per cent of the broiler chicken carcasses sold in the market had detectable levels of E. coli, which indicates faecal contamination.

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Danger and exploitation in the farms:

According to U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, people working in the slaughterhouses are more than three times more likely to sustain injuries than working in other manufacturing jobs. They are likely to suffer from a repetitive stress injury 30 times more than workers in other manufacturing jobs.

Chickens used for food are dying of thirst:

Chickens on the factory farms almost always become crippled because their legs are unable to support the weight of their bodies. By the age of 6 weeks, 90 percent of broiler chickens become so obese that they cannot walk. Many crippled chickens die when on factory farms.

Manipulative meat industry:

Companies labelling, "free-range" and "organic" mean chickens were raised without any cruelty which is not always true. Every year, millions of male chicks are killed in a high-speed grinder known as "macerator", because they are of no worth to the egg industry.

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Motherly love:

Naturally, a hen will cluck to her chicks before even they hatch while sitting on the eggs but on factory farms, eggs are taken away from the mother soon after they are laid and placed in large incubator. Chicks will never be meeting his or her parents.

Killing the chickens leads to environment degradation:

Raising billions of chickens for factory farms produces huge amounts of excrement. Oregon State University professor of agriculture Peter Cheeke says they amount to "a frontal assault on the environment". Chickens are fed an enormous amount of antibiotics, these chemicals are found in high concentrations in their farces, and leading to fecal pollution from chicken farms which is disastrous for the environment.

– by Pinaz Kazi of NewsGram. Twitter: @PinazKazi