A recent video unveiling from PETA Asia shows the immense suffering of chickens in the factory and slaughterhouse of Australia's largest chicken producer Baiada. The company slaughters approximately 35% of the country's broiler chickens. Although the company's own slaughterhouse has surveillance cameras, these did not prevent employees from hitting chickens.

Head crushed with a metal rod

At the Baiada breeding farm, an eyewitness from PETA Asia discovered numerous lame, injured and sick birds.

The crowded confinement causes a lot of stress in the confined animals and leads to many fights between the birds with often fatal injuries. Some of the injured animals, such as Ringo, were simply left to die.

It has been documented that workers grabbed individual birds, squeezed their heads under a metal bar and dragged their legs. These animals, too, were left to their own devices and to a slow and painful death.
Beaten on chickens.

Chickens that survived these torments were then transported to the slaughterhouse in Baiada. There, the eyewitness from PETA Asia watched workers hit live chickens on the head and smash them against a metal railing before hanging the animals by their legs. Surveillance cameras were installed in the slaughterhouse, but this did not stop the staff from abusing the frightened animals.

A worker told the eyewitness he would "just crush" the birds. In the case of another worker, the eyewitness noticed that he simply tore off the birds' heads again and again. He even put a severed head on his finger and played with it like a finger puppet.

Chickens cut their throats for McDonald's and other companies

First, the chickens were immersed in an electrified water bath, which was supposed to numb them. But many animals were still fully conscious when their throats were cut with a blade. A worker manually cut the throats of chickens that had not been killed by the blade.

Baiada apparently supplies chicken meat to McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Woolworths, Coles, Red Rooster, and the outdoor brand Lilydale. Whether other companies will be supplied is unclear.

Chickens deserve better

Chickens are curious, intelligent animals. According to behavioral scientist, Dr. Chris Evans of the Australian Macquarie University, chickens can "solve problems well". They understand, according to Evans, that objects that were hidden immediately before still exist - a concept that human children up to a certain age do not yet understand. Regarding the abilities of chickens, Evans adds:

"At conferences, I sometimes have the fun of enumerating different traits without mentioning that they are chickens - people usually think I'm talking about monkeys."

In freedom, chickens make friends and build social hierarchies. They recognize each other and develop a pecking order. Chickens love their children and take care of them, enjoy dust baths, build nests and sleep in trees. In the meat industry, chickens cannot behave like this in any way.

PETA has handed over the evidence of cruelty to animals at the Baiada farm and slaughterhouse to the Australian authorities.