‘You Get a Day Off Work. I Get Worked to Death.’: PETA Hen Makes Vegan Plea to Fairgoers

For Immediate Release:
August 30, 2023

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

Ahead of Labor Day weekend, people flocking to the Oregon State Fair will see a sky-high message, courtesy of PETA, pointing out that there’s never a day off for the billions of chickens who are slaughtered each year for their flesh or exploited for their eggs while being confined to filthy, cramped enclosures, where viruses and bacteria thrive.

“Chickens don’t get a sick day, let alone a holiday, to rest, recover, or do anything that comes naturally to them, like taking a dust bath or stretching their wings,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges everyone to see chickens as the living, feeling beings they are and keep them out of state fairs, sandwiches, and salads.”

PETA points out that chicken and egg farms, as well as state fairs, are ideal breeding grounds for the spread of bacteria and disease, such as E. coli, salmonella, and avian flu. A current outbreak of HPAI—a highly contagious and deadly disease among birds, including chickens—has already shut down one of this year’s exhibits at the Oregon State Fair, which warned that further outbreaks of bird flu could lead to more closures.

In the meat industry, chickens are bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. Those used for eggs are either confined to cramped wire cages, where they don’t even have enough room to spread their wings, or crammed into sheds by the thousands, leaving each bird barely more than one square foot of space. After their bodies are exhausted and their egg production drops, they’re sent to slaughterhouses, where their throats are cut, often while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their carbon footprint, and reduces their own risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity.

The billboard is located at 2611 Hawthorne Ave. N.E., Salem. This ad will also run in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegan starter kit on its website. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.