The images in the following program are highly sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

Concerned viewers, this is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. On today’s program we’ll conclude our interview with former slaughterhouse worker-turned animal rights advocate Carl Scott of New Zealand.

For most of his life Mr. Scott had a connection of some sort to the livestock industry, but became a vegan in his 30’s and began valiantly speaking up for voiceless farm animals. In April 2011 he made media headlines after locking himself in a cage for 31 days to raise awareness of the unconscionable abuse of egg-laying hens in factory farms and to experience firsthand the appallingly cramped conditions that chickens around the world endure daily. We asked Carl Scott what gave him the idea to simulate the life of a factory farmed hen.

I had been conscious, well and truly before I was a vegan, that the biggest battery farm in New Zealand is about 20 minutes up the road that way, and it was like a thorn in my side. It was like, it shouldn’t be there, but nothing’s being done about it. I got to the point where, once I became a vegan, that I wanted everyone to stop hurting the animals. And I read a thing on Facebook actually, it was called “Anonymous Memoir of a Battery Cage Chicken.” And it really did my head in.

I was outraged, I was upset. It was written as though a hen had written it, describing her life. And I got thinking, how do you stop it? I believe this was an answer given to me by the universe, it just popped into my head out of nowhere. It really felt like, “Where did that come from?” It said, “Put yourself in the cage.”

And just immediately I thought, “Woah, that’s really profound – on a number of levels, it’s symbolic, it’s like (Mahatma) Gandhi, the willingness to suffer on behalf of others.” People would immediately get the symbolism – How would I like to be in a cage? Well, how would the chickens like it? It would be visual, it’s out there.

All aspects of life for battery-caged chickens are beyond unbearable. At the tender age of 18 weeks, hens are imprisoned in cages that may measure as small as 45 centimeters by 50 centimeters, slightly bigger than an average microwave oven, with five birds crammed into a single cage, and depending on the size and design, even as many as 11. The cages are so overcrowded that the birds will never, for the rest of their tormented lives, be able to spread their wings, which measure on average 81 centimeters from tip to tip.

In addition, the cages are stacked on top of one another to fit as many birds into a shed as possible, meaning that the feces and urine from the higher cages fall onto the chickens below, causing extremely sordid, disgusting conditions and high levels of ammonia, which leads to terrible eye and upper-respiratory-tract infections that are never treated. Anywhere from a staggering 20,000 to 125,000 hens may live in a single shed.

As they are deprived of the ability to peck or scratch the ground, the birds may start to peck one another. To prevent this, battery hens are typically de-beaked as chicks in a severely painful procedure that uses a red hot blade to slice off the tip of the beak, which contains highly sensitive tissue. Chicks are first de-beaked at one day old and then again at seven weeks, as the beak often grows back, all without the use of anesthesia or painkillers.

Light conditions and food are viciously manipulated to get the hens to lay more eggs, and a single hen is forced to produce anywhere from 250 to 290 eggs a year; whereas their counterparts who live free normally lay only 12 to 24 eggs. The unnatural conditions of battery cages cause enormous discomfort and various diseases to the reproductive systems of young hens. Being deprived of movement the birds often experience bits of egg clogging their oviducts, leading to inflammation and ultimately, paralysis.

Also, oversized eggs are often formed that cannot be laid, causing the uterus to collapse or become displaced, as the birds are forced to expel these eggs on a daily basis. This is the terrible fate of battery hens. What was it like to spend such a long time in a cage? Mr. Scott now tells us of his experience of living life like a battery hen.

We had a few frosts and there were some cold days, but I coped okay. The last few days, I was getting stiff, sore knees and ankles. If I had done two months, I would have been in pain, three months I would have been in a lot of pain, and that was enough to make me understand what life might be like for a chicken. And also, one thing that really struck me was I had to get out one day and empty my toilet bucket, nobody had come, the bucket was full, I had to get out myself and do it.

And I went round the back of the tent, and I had seen the area round there before but it had been over a week since I’d been there and it was delightful to have a different change of scenery. And that really surprised me and it made me realize how much we crave and love novelty, variety, and stimulation. I had a laptop, people visiting me, all this media, and I still enjoyed that view.

The chickens have nothing except themselves, the cold steel cage, each other, that’s it, that’s their life and it must be insane, it must literally drive them insane, just that boredom. All animals, they love that novelty, variety, and stimulation. Yes, that’s one thing that really came out of it for me.

During his time as a slaughterhouse employee, Carl Scott worked various jobs mostly related to the slaying of sheep and thus saw the many atrocities committed against our innocent, sensitive animal co-inhabitants. On one occasion he worked in the killing line for cows. The abuse of cows raised for meat is truly horrendous. The helpless animals are branded repeatedly with a searing, hot iron, which inflicts third-degree burns.

In addition, the males are castrated and de-horned, and without painkillers. The cows live jammed together in feedlots, walking around knee-deep in their own waste, and are fed a mixture of corn and fillers, including discarded animal parts, excrement and even sawdust. This diet and the absolutely wretched living conditions often leads to illness but the animals are pumped full of medicine and antibiotics to keep them alive until they are big and of a sufficient weight to be sent to the slaughterhouse to suffer the same fate as dairy cows.

The subsequent transport and killing of the animals is equally harrowing and heart-wrenching. The cows are prodded with electric rods and forced onto trucks, only to endure a long, stressful journey to the abattoir without food, water or protection from the elements.

This experience is extremely frightening for the animals, many of whom are so weak they don’t survive the trip, or suffer broken legs or spines. Cows that can’t walk off the truck are dragged out with chains and left to die, distressed and writhing in agony. The bovines are then led into the house of death.

Another thing that I saw was the beef house where they killed the cows. Now that’s one thing that really stuck in my mind that surprised me was I went down there to work, somebody was off sick and they needed somebody so I went down, filled in for the day, was watching them kill the cows. They would come through the wall – most of the sheep would come through sort of bewildered and confused.

Some of them were obviously scared, but they were more, sort of, “What’s happening, where am I?” The cows were much the same, “What’s happening, where am I,” but they really looked scared. It’s like they knew this was bad and they didn’t want to be there. Not many of the cows looked like, “Oh, this is interesting.” They looked like, “I don’t want to be here.”

And they were killed with a captive bolt gun; it wasn’t electricity. It was like a thing was held up to their forehead … and that was supposed to render them unconscious. I saw on a couple of occasions when it didn’t work, but one in particular has always stuck with me. The guy put a shot and it didn’t work, and the cow was bellowing and throwing her head round like that. She was obviously fully conscious and very distressed as you would be.

And the guy was frantically … his hands were shaking… trying to re-load his gun, and get her down…and he couldn’t get the gun, and finally he got the shot in and the cow went down, and he was…(panting)… and he looked around, and he saw me looking at him , and he looked really guilty. And I just sort of thought a guy who did this for a living would just sort of get used to it and be immune to it. But he did not enjoy what he was doing.

In the final heinous step, the cow is chained at a hind leg, hoisted upside down onto a moving belt and bled to death after the carotid arteries in her neck are slit. Today Carl Scott is vegan. What made him adopt the compassionate, plant-based diet?

I had a dream. It was a very profound dream. It was like I was talking to Jesus or the Buddha or some holy figure. And I don’t remember what the conversation was but just before I woke up, I looked at him and I said, “I’m going to become vegan” and I burst into tears. And this feeling came over me, this is in the dream still, this just feels so right. And then I woke up – woah!

And it was like I just knew, “Oh, that’s my answer. And I so didn’t expect that! I thought the universe would tell me – write a book, go traveling, whatever. I did not expect “Go vegan,” but that was my answer.

If the entire world no longer consumes animal foods and does not purchase animal-based products such as leather clothing and shoes, the livestock industry’s ruthless cycle of raising and slaughtering our animal friends will end forever. Mr. Carl Scott we laud your loving, noble efforts to protect the sensitive, intelligent animals and may all who hear your profound story become vegan.

For more details on Carl Scott, please visit www.Facebook.com
Search: person in a cage Read Carl Scott’s story “From Slaughterhouse Worker, to Vegan. A strange journey.” at www.VegSense.net/articles.html

Thank you for your presence today on Stop Animal Cruelty. We sincerely pray that all humanity soon adopts the life-preserving, animal-friendly, organic vegan diet.