Chicken Slaughter Plant Allegations of Animal Abuse

Undercover investigators for animal welfare have published another video on conditions inside the Carthage Texas USA slaughter plant of Tyson, taken during the Summer of 2015.





Tyson Foods is one of the world's largest processors and marketers of chicken, beef and pork.

Fox BusinessNews investigated the video and allegations made by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and reported as follows:

In an email to FOXBusiness.com, Tyson Foods says they’re still reviewing the video but want consumers to know that they are committed to proper animal handling and workplace safety.

“Everyone who works with live animals in our plants – including the person who secretly shot this video – is trained in proper animal handling and instructed to report anything they believe is inappropriate. They can report to their supervisor, the Tyson Foods compliance and ethics hotline and even one of the USDA inspectors who have access to all parts of the plant, including live animal handling areas. During the timeframe we believe this video was shot, we have no record of any employees reporting claims of animal handling violations,” the company said via email to FOXBusiness.com.

Tyson says in addition to training, they regularly conduct internal animal handling audits and they’re also subjected to third party audits as well.

“The USDA has authority over production rates. We operate our plants – including the one in Carthage, Texas – well within the limits set by the USDA. The safety of our Team Members is very important to us,” the company adds.

In an e-mail to FOXBusiness.com, the USDA gave the following statement.

"We are looking into the allegations of humane handling abuse at the Texas facility. FSIS (Food Safety and Inspection Service) is dedicated to ensuring that all animals presented for slaughter at FSIS-inspected facilities are treated humanely."

Mother Jones and Food Safety News provide additional information on these allegations.

Tyson is usually seen as a leader in the US chicken industry by the USDA, consumers, and Tyson's peers.

The equipment, chemicals, methods, and training used by Tyson are likely the same or similar to the ones currently used in Canadian slaughter plants, or the Canadian plants would like to upgrade their "inferior and antequated" chicken slaughter plants so they are more like Tyson and its leading competitors.

Until undercover documentation of Canadian chicken slaughter plants occurs, we really don't know for sure what is occurring.  Alternatively, we can wait for Canada's chicken slaughter plants to be fully open, transparent, co-operative, and responsible to consumers.  That may take a while under the top secret Supply Management system of Canada.

Condemned Chicken

CFO (Chicken Farmers of Ontario) say they are all about quality and continuous improvement.  Do they offer any proof of their accomplishments which is independently verifiable ?  There does seem to be lots of effort at CFO, and some changes, but I wonder if their focus is in the right area.

To me, CFO's prime role is to serve the greater good of the public.  One of the most important aspects of serving the public is having safe chicken of excellent quality.  To maximize the safety and quality of chicken, you have to have healthy birds.  Just how healthy are the birds raised in Ontario?

The following table is derived from data provided by CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) here.  I confirmed with a CFIA DVM (Doctor of Veterinarian Medicine) who is in charge of producing the reports that the numbers presented there are correct, and I was understanding them.

I see that in 2012, Ontario's Federally Inspected slaughter plants received about 370,000 dead or diseased chickens from chicken producers. That is a defect rate of 1.26%.

In addition, I observe that Ontario's chicken crop is 23.3% worse than Atlantic Canada, and 21.7% worse than BC.

I wonder why?

If chicken farmers in BC and the Atlantic Provinces can deliver fewer dead and diseased chickens to the slaughter plants, why can't Ontario?

If CFO (Chicken Farmers of Ontario) has their "Team Ontario" trained to be the best they can be, then why is Ontario significantly worse in bird health than what the farmers in BC and the Atlantic provinces can achieve?

If anybody knows the answers to these puzzling and disturbing results, I'm interested in learning why.