Undercover films show misery for turkeys and chickens

Animal Aid this week filmed inside a turkey farm, and the footage released shows the truth of that miserable industry – thousands of birds packed into windowless, crowded sheds for their entire lives. Feather loss and sore skin are commonplace. One bird suffers from a huge swelling in her chest. Their fate is obvious.

The undercover chicken film shows chickens being grabbed four at a time by their frail legs, kicked and thrown yards into already-packed crates before they go to slaughter.

Shot at Braes Farm in Dumfriesshire, where the six-week-old birds have been confined in huge sheds, the footage reveals what terrified chickens endure, in sheds across the country, in the final moments before they are transported to slaughter.

Teams of men work methodically through the sheds, tossing the birds into plastic crates and loading them onto pallet trucks. Twelve birds are crammed – often with injuries to their legs and wings – into each container, where they will remain until they are unloaded and killed at the slaughterhouse.

Birds who are ‘in the way’ – usually because their underdeveloped legs are too weak to carry their weight – are kicked aside. In short, the birds are treated as unfeeling objects.