Secretly recorded footage reveals hens apparently writhing in distress and desperately trying to escape as they are suffocated to death to provide meat for supermarkets including Tesco.
In what’s thought to be the first-ever video of its kind, the birds are seen twisting their necks as they are killed with carbon dioxide. They are also heard gasping for breath and emitting high-pitched shrieks.
The recording – which activists say was made at an abattoir endorsed by RSPCA Assured – show hens being lowered into the gas chamber and dying over the course of several minutes.
Critics said the scenes laid bare the “horrors” behind egg production in the UK, including the fate of even free-range and organic hens.
Hens whose egg production has declined are dubbed “spent”, before they are killed and their carcasses are packaged for meat.
Animal-lovers have for years objected to the gassing of pigs with carbon dioxide, warning the animals “burn from the inside out” and suffer immensely in the last minutes of their lives.
Last year 99 per cent of “spent” hens were stunned and slaughtered with CO2; and 77 per cent of meat chickens were killed this way, according to government figures.
In recent years carbon dioxide as a slaughter method has gradually replaced electrical water bath stunning, which raised concerns over the inconsistency of stuns.
The footage, taken with hidden cameras, shows hens – female chickens used for laying eggs – twisting in distress as they die, and some birds apparently trying to escape.
The floor of the gas chamber was littered with dead birds that had jumped out of the crates, according to activist, filmmaker and vegan advocate Joey Carbstrong, who installed the cameras.
Mr Carbstrong and other activists say they shot the video at an abattoir in West Yorkshire run by HCF Poultry. The company denies it was shot at its premises.
HCF supplies Cranswick Foods, one of the UK’s largest meat producers, which processes the hens into chicken meat products widely sold in Britain.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by either Cranswick or the abattoir as using CO2 is an entirely lawful way to slaughter chickens. However, Mr Carbstrong said the video exposed “the callous treatment of free-range hens when they are no longer profitable”.
“This footage dismantles the industry’s carefully curated image of ‘happy hens’ and reveals the horrifying truth of how these sensitive birds are discarded,” he said.
“The public are being misled by labelling and have a right to know the reality behind what they are buying.”
Mr Carbstrong added: “Egg-laying hens have been genetically manipulated to produce around 300 eggs per year – far beyond the 10 to 15 eggs naturally laid by their ancestor, the red junglefowl.
“This excessive egg production takes a severe toll on their bodies in multiple ways. Regardless of whether they are free-range, barn-kept or caged, most hens are crammed by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds, where disease runs rampant and cannibalism of dead and dying birds is widespread.
“After just 18 months of relentless exploitation, they are forced to experience a terrifying and agonising death, before being processed into food products.”
The Independent has previously revealed one case of hens being kept in “cruelly overcrowded” cages with insufficient water and another when sick and dying hens were found alongside living ones at a free-range egg farm supplying leading supermarkets as well as Marks & Spencer.
Around 35 million “spent” hens a year are killed for their meat, figures show. HCF can process 10,500 birds per hour, according to a document from 2018, the latest available.
Jenny L Mace, an associate lecturer in animal welfare at the University of Winchester, wrote in a report on the footage that the most concerning findings were the high-pitched shrieks, gasping, collisions with equipment, and chickens falling against one another and out of the crates.
“Without use of a significantly less aversive gas or gas mixture, it is difficult to see how this method equates to 1) a viable (high-welfare) replacement to the former slaughter method of shackling chickens upside down and stunning in a water bath, and 2) a humane death or the purpose of stunning,” she wrote.
She said CO2 caused respiratory distress, and describing it as an anaesthetic “may be misleading” because of the distress inhaling it causes.
“There is no suggestion of this case being a ‘bad apple’; this is standard practice and in accordance with legislation,” she wrote.
Andrew Opie, of the British Retail Consortium, said on behalf of Tesco and other supermarkets: “Our members know how important animal welfare is to their customers and take their responsibilities to animal welfare very seriously to ensure that expected standards are being met.”
RSPCA Assured said the birds in the footage were already unconscious and were not in pain.
A spokesperson said the footage was deeply upsetting but that carbon dioxide was permitted under RSPCA welfare standards, adding: “However, RSPCA standards set requirements that go above the law to ensure a more humane process.
“Due to their physiology, when birds lose consciousness their brains no longer have control over their bodies – which can cause involuntary movements as seen in the footage. This can be incredibly difficult to watch but the birds are actually unconscious when this happens, and are not experiencing pain.”
Cranswick did not respond to a request to comment.
