Animals on Factory Farms / 45their beaks are cut off with a hot blade when the birds are just a
few days old.
In both broiler and egg-laying facilities, the producers are
responsible for day-to-day tasks, but the integrator owns the birds.
This arrangement becomes an important factor in disaster response.
Because the producers do not own the birds, they cannot legally
authorize or conduct rescue operations. In addition, the huge num-
bers of birds and animals in a typical facility pose tremendous logis-
tical problems with transportation and rehousing. Saving the lives
of farmed animals often costs more than the monetary value of the
animals’ bodies. Two examples of disasters affecting chicken facili-
ties, one for broilers and one for egg-laying hens, illustrate how the
moral status of animals creates a lethal vulnerability.
“It Looked Like a Field of Cotton”
Farm Sanctuary estimates that at the time of Hurricane Katrina, 635
million farm animals were being raised in the region comprising
Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The Humane
Society of the United States puts the number in the billions. The
region is one of several in the country known for huge broiler pro-
duction facilities. Tyson Foods produces approximately fi ve million
chickens a week just in Mississippi.^15 Sanderson Farms had 1,874
broiler houses in Mississippi at the time. The company estimates
that three million broiler chickens died because of Katrina.^16
After the storm, compared with the coverage given to compan-
ion animals, reports of farm animals injured and killed were slow
to appear in the media. A tornado that struck in Katrina’s wake de-
stroyed thirty or more growing sheds in Georgia. Thousands of
birds were killed, and countless other remained trapped. Wind tore
the roofs from broiler facilities in Alabama and Mississippi, expos-
ing hundreds of thousands of birds to severe weather. The storm
knocked out the power in much of the region and, without electric-
ity and locked into cages, chickens would die of starvation and thirst.
The staff of Farm Sanctuary and Animal Place, both of which
rescue and shelter farmed animals, were watching reports from the