Cruelty at Australia’s Largest Chicken Supplier Exposed

On Sunday, September 14, 2003, Australia’s Sunday Telegraph exposed the hidden cruelty taking place at two farms that supply Ingham’s, the nation’s largest chicken producer and a KFC supplier. Members of Animal Liberation New South Wales entered the farm on the previous Sunday and Friday nights, rescuing 15 chickens and documenting the suffering of thousands more.

The investigators found thousands of chickens living crippled under their own weight because of KFC’s standard breeding practices. The Sunday Telegraph wrote:

“Video footage and photographs taken inside two broiler sheds showed chickens unable to hold up their own body weight lying in manure suffering ammonia burns. Some who were helped to their feet only to topple over, leaned precariously on their beaks before falling to the ground.

Others flapped their wings as they dragged themselves around the floor. Many could be seen with their legs splayed; their young joints unable to take the weight of their huge bodies.”

Of the 15 birds rescued from these horrific conditions, 11 were examined by a veterinarian. Only two were able to walk, and all had to be euthanized.

The birds at the Ingham’s facilities were living in barren, windowless sheds, with no access to fresh air or sunlight. In Australia, it is perfectly legal for farmers to hold up to 40,000 birds in a single shed, with each bird having about as much space as a standard-sized sheet of notebook paper. In other countries, the standards are even less strict.

The Sunday Telegraph also published an editorial condemning such abuse and calling on consumers everywhere to do their part to prevent cruelty to farmed animals by refusing to support it. “No civilised country should tolerate such cruelty,” the Telegraph wrote. “The suffering of any living creature is too big a price to pay for cheap food at the checkout.”

Click here to read the Sunday Telegraph story about this investigation.

Click here to read the Sunday Telegraph editorial condemning such cruelty.