Stop using electric stun baths in slaughter of chickens, says report
BREXIT freedoms should be used to stop the use of electric water baths in the slaughter of millions of British chickens, animal welfare groups say.
Each year 300 million chickens in the UK are stunned by being passed through the baths before their slaughter. The birds are shackled upside down by the legs and attached to conveyor belts. Their heads are then dipped into water with an electric current passing through it before their throats are cut.
But the Wildlife and Countryside Link and the UK Centre For Animal Law say some birds are not stunned.
The report, whose backers include the RSPCA, PDSA and Humane Society International, says: “The adequate stunning of all birds cannot be achieved with water bath systems. The electrical currents used are often too low, the frequencies too high and the birds often move, missing the water bath stunner.” It says hanging the chickens up “causes pain and suffering” and their shackling should be prohibited and “research funded to develop humane alternatives”.
Most of the other 700 million chickens killed here each year are stunned with gas.
Details of the report emerged as the RSPCA urged the Government to use Brexit to introduce subsidies for farmers who improve animal welfare.
The British Poultry Council said stunning of poultry is “essential” and provides the best welfare at the time of slaughter. It stressed that stunning by gas and electric water baths are both legal, adding: “While science and legislation still suggest that electric stunning can deliver an ‘effective stun’, it will be unfair to pick one method over the other.”