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On
Good Friday 2003, 1,023 chickens were rescued from a battery farm in Hampshire.
Many of the birds had fallen from their cramped cages and were left to drown,
rot and decay in piles of their own waste. We have hours of shocking footage
taken from within this farm. We often see upsetting images of chickens stacked high in their battery cages. They are squashed together without room to move and they are mostly hen pecked and weak, but rarely do we see what lies beneath. The video footage shows a new world. |
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A world of giant cobwebs and mountains of waste. At John Parkers Poultry Ltd the cages are stacked four high, in aisles which have hundreds of cages down each side in a shed the size of an average factory unit. It looks as though the bottom pit of waste had never been cleared out. At first you would think that life could not exist in this new world, but on closer inspection we see that the birds stacked in their horrid cages above are in fact the "lucky" ones. |
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Lying in these piles of waste which in places is waist high are poor defenceless chickens. They are dying and weak, and without access to food and water they are just waiting for their death. The majority of the waste is sludge-like and almost in liquid form, which means that the chickens legs sink down into it and it is near to impossible for them to get out. Many of the chickens had drowned in their own waste, and many were stuck. The place is infested with flies and rats which the chickens continually have to fight off to prevent being eaten alive. |
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After
spending weeks in the piles of waste the chickens who hadn’t drowned,
starved or been attacked by rats bore leg irons. They had huge blocks of faeces firmly encrusted around their legs and feet. It was obvious these leg irons had built up over a number of weeks due to the size of them. This made walking incredibly difficult and painful. Some chickens were unable to walk at all. |
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It
took volunteers hours
of work using chisels and hammers to remove these soid leg irons from
their legs. Outraged we sent the footage to Meridian news who were quick to report the story and show the footage and awful conditions. They described the appalling conditions at John Parkers Poultry, and urged people to consider where their supermarket eggs had come from. |
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The
real shock came when an independent vet, who Meridian T.V had asked to
look at the farm, could not find any breach of the law.He refused to condemn
the farm and suggested that their suffering in the dark in high piles
of waste is a trade off for cheap eggs. This incredible declaration seemed so unbelievable that Trading Standards and the RSPCA were sent copies. Perversely, Trading Standards were more concerned that people had entered the farm than they were about the appalling conditions and state of the chickens. |
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They finally relented on this subject when it was pointed out that without these
people there would have been no evidence of animal cruelty in the first place
Trading Standards went on to say that it is very rare to get any kind of conviction
in cases such as these.
Despite this however, they did organise an inspection of the site. When they
visited, all of the chickens on site had conveniently been taken away for slaughter.
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Since this investigation, a number of battery farms across Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire have been investigated. We have found that the conditions at John Parkers Poultry Ltd are not isolated. In fact we have not come across a single farm where chickens have not been left to die in mountains of waste. It is common for up to 60 chickens to be left in this state. |
What can you do?
Obviously
we can't tell you to rescue birds yourself, but for starters you could boycott
the egg industry, by following an egg-free diet. Click
here to find out how.
If you know about any farms that you think are breaking the law, please let
us know at info@totalliberation.co.uk
we promise to respect your anonymity 100%.