Undercover footage by an animal rights activist has revealed workers in a fast food supplier punching chickens and ripping their heads off – while the poor animals are still alive.
The graphic video – which was secretly filmed inside a Tyson Foods plant in September – has now led to two employees getting the sack, and the footage could now launch legal proceedings against the fast food chicken supplier. The Mercy for Animals activist accepted a job at the food plant in Carthage, Mississippi, and then filmed co-workers violently abusing the birds.
Among the horrendous treatment, employees bashed the chickens with their fists and threw them against equipment, and also tore off the chickens heads while they were still alive and conscious.
Tyson Foods released a statement saying:
We do not believe the behaviour shown in this video by the two team members we have now terminated is representative of the actions of the thousands of workers we employ across the country.
Understandably, animal rights activists have reacted about this and rightly so. Mercy for Animals described the treatment at the plant – which processes 2.5 million chickens a week as ‘ongoing and systematic’. The group have now submitted a statement to the Leake County, Mississippi Justice Court accusing the firm of 33 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty – singling out six workers in particular.
It also became apparent that the firm did not stun the birds properly in some cases in the ‘bath’ and ultimately, they drowned instead. Other chickens were piled up, either dying from being crushed or suffocated, or not being subdued properly when slitting their throats – leading to a more gruesome end for the chickens.
This isn’t the first time the factory has received criticism either. Another source captured video of an independent chicken farm in Tennessee – that slaughtered chickens for Tyson to turn into Chicken McNuggets for McDonalds – clubbing birds to death.
In August, both McDonald’s and Tyson broke off relations with the farm.
