Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MIRROR INVESTIGATION
Horror of U.S. chickens washed in chlorine to be sold in the UK soon
CRAMMED into an airless room with barely any space and covered in sores, these chickens spend their pitiful seven weeks on earth in silent horror.
The end finally comes when their throats are slit at a slaughterhouse before they are machine-plucked and washed in chlorine.
I hold one at less than eight weeks old in my hand as its heart pounds in its chest and I am told that thanks to engineered genetics to make them grow quicker, if it were a human it would weigh 47st.
Welcome to the poultry capital of the world, where America’s ravenous appetite for controversial reared chickens is set to take flight across the Atlantic if Donald Trump gets his way in a UK-US trade deal.
For 23 years, chlorine-washed US chickens have been banned in the EU over fears it masks poor hygiene standards. But post-brexit, American poultry producers insist we accept their lower welfare conditions as part of any new tie-up.
STENCH
Today, the Mirror reports from inside the highly secretive industry.
One farmer, who rears birds for a major US supplier, took us to his shed at Gainesville, Georgia, to see first hand what is known in these parts as “white gold”.
Stepping inside, I was hit by the overpowering smell of faeces and ammonia. The stench from the two-inch deep layer of excrement was so overpowering I had to cover my mouth and nose.
Anyone would expect a crescendo of noise from what lives inside.
There must have been more than 30,000 chickens sitting on the floor in front of me – but all were silent.
They didn’t move. Or cluck. Other than those around the corn feeders, most appeared like statues, living in almost complete darkness.
Allowed to pick one up, most shocking was its bloated stomach. Like all the others, it had lost its feathers, exposing red raw flesh.
The whole underside of almost every chicken appeared like an unbroken bedsore.
Because of their abnormally accelerated weight gain some don’t even make it to slaughter, dying of heart attacks and collapsed lungs.
Poultry Science Journal has calculated that if humans grew at the same rate as these modern chickens, they would weigh 47 stone by eight weeks. The noxious compound of nitrogen and hydrogen emitted by the birds can also make them go blind.
Driving through the hilly farmlands on the outskirts of Gainesville there are times where you can see virtually nothing but series of low pitch-roofed sheds, each about 250 yards long.
We arrived hoping to speak to farmers and paymasters about the industry. But very quickly it became apparent all were under a strict omerta that they dare not break or livelihoods would be lost and contracts ripped apart.
One farmer, who asked not to be named, told us: “The whole industry is run like a cartel by the big companies. Break the rules and you are dead to them. You’re gone. The poultry manufacturers provide everything… the birds, the feed, the antibiotics, the whole nine yards.
“All we are now are landlords renting out our sheds for their tenants seven weeks at a time.
“One wrong move though and you’re gone. It’s like dealing with the mafia. Their websites may say they care about animal welfare but their chief concern is profit.” Humane Society International’s Dr Sara Shields said: “Consumers are right