Posted on the 27th July 2022
Caged, wounded and distressed: latest game bird farm investigation
Animal Aid has been investigating the game bird breeding industry in Wales and England since 2004, and in November that year our undercover footage was shown on BBC’s Countryfile programme. Our first major report, the following year, revealed in detail the horrors of the use of battery cages for breeding birds.
The birds are so stressed by being confined, that they repeatedly fly upwards in an effort to escape, and they attack one another out of frustration and lack of space. Often, the gamekeeper’s solution is to put clips on the birds’ beaks to restrict movement and dressings on the birds’ backs to prevent mating injuries. But of course, this does nothing to alleviate the birds’ anxiety and may even serve to increase it.
Since 2004, Animal Aid has made numerous visits to game farms in Wales and England, cataloguing the miserable confinement of the breeding birds, their physical injuries and their anxiety. We have reported our findings to the relevant authorities, and repeatedly called for a ban on the use of the cages.
Our latest investigation has revealed that, almost 20 years later, nothing has changed. An inspection of two game bird breeding operations in Wales in May this year, found countless pheasants and partridges confined in dreadful battery cages on these vast, soulless industrial farms. See timeline, below, for details.
We campaign for an end of the killing of animals for sport, but in the interim, the very least that can be done is to ban the use of battery cages for the breeding birds.
Notes
Excerpts from Animal Aid’s investigations into the game bird industry in Wales, below.
Bettws Hall had raised breeding cages that were enriched with a laying screen, scratch pad (piece of astroturf) and a piece of wood on the cage floor to act as a perch. Many birds had feather loss on the backs and rumps with small open wounds. Most of the birds had beak masks fitted and most of the females had saddles fitted. There was a dying bird in one cage with several small open wounds.
Park Farm had partridge cages and pheasant cages. Many were barren and without enrichment. Two cages contained a dead pheasant. A few partridges were found with bits in the mouth/beak. Most of the pheasants in the raised cages had beak masks. Many of the pheasants in the raised cages had feather loss on their backs, including males. A few partridges also had feather loss on the necks.
Investigators filmed eggs and what appeared to be live chicks being tossed into the macerator.
Investigators reported: “four dead female pheasants in different cages, including two dead in one cage. Two of the dead birds were visible in the egg trays of the cages but had been left in place. Some of the dead birds has also been cannibalised on the rear.”
Our investigators examined 20 pheasant cages and found that 18 of them were barren. Of the other two ‘enriched’ cages, one had a green ‘privacy’ curtain; the other contained a single brick. Inside one of the cages lay a bird dead, and there was a female pheasant with a head wound in another cage. A dunnock was trapped inside a cage trap nearby.
Our investigators found that all the cages inspected were barren, in contravention of the Code of Practice. Several of the female pheasants had escaped the cages and all still had beak shrouds fitted. There was a ‘catching up’ trap in the field with about ten birds inside, even though it is illegal to trap pheasants out of season. Our digital thermometer recorded temperatures between 0° and 1° C inside and outside the cages.
Animal Aid investigators found pheasants kept in barren cages in contravention of the Code of Practice. One dead bird was left on top of the cages, which is a biosecurity concern under the Animal By-Products Regulations.
A digital thermometer was left inside the cages for 21 hours. It recorded temperatures (in centigrade) in the high 30s and low 40s (up to 41.2°C) over a continuous five-hour period.
Animal Aid investigators visited Long Mountain Cwm Gwnen shoot and found 35 to 40 dead birds on the land. More birds were stuck in the wire mesh of the release pen, some still alive. They were freed from the mesh and put back into the pen.
Animal Aid investigators found stressed pheasants in poor physical condition. The raised units that they were kept in had minimal enrichment – there were no nest boxes or areas for dust bathing.
Animal Aid investigators found pheasants fitted with beak shrouds leaping at the wire mesh (‘scalping’). There were dead birds in the cages, which were ‘enriched’ only with one piece of wood and a green ‘privacy’ curtain.
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