This removes any chance of malicious animal abuse by workers and ensures that no animals have their heads ripped off while fully conscious or are scalded alive in feather-removal tanks – something the USDA reports happens to as many as a million birds per year in the U.S. The video was taken at the facility which is near Carthage, Miss.
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It shows employees punching, throwing, and beating chickens.
Mercy for Animals’ Jeni Haines says a recent undercover investigation exposed birds being abused at a McDonald’s supplier.
Mercy for Animals filed a misdemeanor complaint in Leake County Justice Court Tuesday that they hope will lead to 33 counts of animal cruelty against Tyson Foods Inc. and six slaughterhouse workers, according to general counsel Vandhana Bala. Everyone who works with live animals in our plants – including the person who secretly shot this video – is trained in proper animal handling and instructed to immediately report anything they believe is inappropriate.
The footage caught “chickens dumped on top of each other on a conveyor belt causing many to suffocate and die under the weight of other birds” Bala said. Alternatively, the group says a method known as low atmospheric pressure stunning, one that decreases the oxygen in the atmosphere knocking the chickens unconscious before they are handled by factory workers, would be preferable to the current live-shackling practice. Absent legislation mandating humane treatment of chickens, MFA is calling on Tyson Foods to implement meaningful animal welfare requirements for all of its company-owned and contract farms and slaughterhouses. Specifically, they want a “controlled atmosphere system”, in which the chickens arrive at a slaughterhouse and are put in a room with inert gases added to the air to put the birds to sleep before they are killed, removing the human aspect of subduing and killing the birds. But a few premium chicken companies, including Pennsylvania’s Bell & Evans and California’s Mary’s Chickens have adopted versions of the technology.
Worth Sparkman, a spokesman for Tyson, told the paper that that one of the employees in the video has been fired and called the images appalling.
Chickens are excluded from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
“We believe proper animal handling is an important moral and ethical obligation”, the company said.
Most recently, the Los Angeles-based Mercy spotlighted a Tennessee chicken farm that was contracted by Tysons to produce poultry used to make chicken nuggets for McDonald’s. Authorities in Weakley County, Tenn. filed criminal animal cruelty charges against the operators last month, alleging that they “knowingly tortured and maimed” chickens.
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Tyson is reportedly investigating the videos and has severed ties with the Tennessee farm after the footage surfaced.
