Secret film reveals game farm horrors
Undercover footage apparently recorded at an Ulcombe pheasant farm appears to reveal shocking practices which the Hunt Saboteurs Association claims are commonplace.
The organisation released a clip it claims its members filmed at Knowle Game Farm, in Knowle Hill, as part of its investigation into the shooting industry.
But the farm insists it has done nothing wrong adding: “As a business we have 25 years’ experience of rearing game birds, and their health and welfare always has and will continue to be our number one priority.”
Birds are bred at the site to be used as live targets for hunters. The video claims those used for breeding are confined to tiny wire cages.
The protest group alleges artificial lighting is used to increase egg production, with plastic ‘bits’ clamped around the birds’ beaks to keep them open and stop them pecking at each other.
According the HSA, chicks are crammed into sheds for seven to eight weeks before being sold to the hunting industry.
Every year, 7,000 hunts run in the UK, with 40 million pheasants released into the wild to satisfy demand.
The organisation says ‘saddles’ are fitted to females over sore areas on their backs caused by over mating, which allow males to continue to mate with them.
Other birds have open wounds caused by numerous futile attempts to flee their cages, the group claims.
The animals which die are piled in open pits, and the footage purports to show a farmer tossing one out of his trailer.
A farm spokesman accused the hunt saboteurs’ investigators of causing the death of some of its birds, through stress. It said the farm was aware of the dumping of dead birds, which occurred earlier this year and it took action at the time.
The Knowle Game Farm website says it rears birds to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ code of practice for the welfare of game birds.