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Monks in S.C. deny PETA charges of cruelty to chickens
MONCKS CORNER, S.C. - Trappist monks who operate a chicken farm in South Carolina are disputing accusations from a national animal welfare group that their birds have been mistreated.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the monks at Mepkin Abbey crammed thousands of chickens into small cages and periodically starved them to increase egg production.
"Please shut down this operation forever. It is an ugly stain on your otherwise blessed community," PETA vice president Bruce Friedrich wrote in a letter posted Wednesday on the group's Web site.
The site also displays a video of the monks' egg farm operation, taped in January without the monks' knowledge, according to PETA. On the video, an "investigator" asked several questions about the operation and footage was shown of injured birds left to die.
The Rev. Stanislaus Gumula, the abbot of Mepkin Abbey, said the group's accusations were "unfactual" and the chickens were caged because it keeps them cleaner and healthier.
"When they are on the floor, they are subjected to all sorts of parasites and bacteria that are around," Gumula told The New York Times for Wednesday's newspapers. "They walk in their own manure. They walk in their troughs."
Phone messages left by The Associated Press at the abbey and with a spokeswoman for the monks were not immediately returned.
"This hurts so much," Gumula told the newspaper. "They're happy chickens. They're being treated nicely."
On the PETA video, the "investigator" discusses forced molting, which causes additional egg-laying cycles. On the video, one monk said it was "like a fast." Trappists monks are known to fast by going on reduced diets.
Gumula said the chickens had last been molted in 2006 and they planned to start a new practice this year that did not require the complete elimination of food.
PETA in its letter said four hens were confined to a 12-by-18-inch cage and the birds "never breathe fresh air, feel the sun on their backs, build nests, raise their young, or do anything else that God designed them to do."
The video also shows two chickens that were described as severely injured but left lying on the floor unattended. It urges supporters to "go egg free" and contact the monks.
The monks also discuss how all the chickens undergo "debeaking" before they are delivered to the abbey. The process slices off a tip of the bird's beak to keep them from pecking one another; PETA argues it is a "painful mutilation."
Gumula told the newspaper the birds were debeaked by the abbey's supplier.
Mepkin Abbey was founded in 1949 by monks from Kentucky. They belong to the worldwide Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, an order commonly referred to in America as Trappists.
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