COK on CNN

On July 25, 2004, CNN ran a story exposing some of the myths surrounding "free-range" chicken production. The three-minute piece included footage from COK's documentary, 45 Days: The Life and Death of a Broiler Chicken, clips from the recent PETA undercover footage from Pilgrim's Pride, and parts of an interview with COK's Paul Shapiro.

Click here to thank CNN for running the piece and including so much factory farm investigation footage!

The transcript of the news segment follows:

We want to shift now to a follow-up story, one that we told you about this past week. You may remember seeing an animal rights' group's undercover pictures of workers stomping on chickens at a Country Pride processing plant, but what about those chickens labeled free range at the super market? Well it turns out some of them may not have been exactly free to roam. CNN's Sean Callebs reports.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Free range chicken, an
enticing name for consumers with an appetite for humane treatment for animals, but what does it truly mean?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That they aren't cooped up in a chicken coop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That they're allowed to roam freely.

CALLEBS: Not really. According to the USDA, producers simply need to provide birds access to go outdoors. That can mean one small door in a crowded coop. The industry admits most free-range chickens don't stretch their legs.

RICHARD LOBB, NATIONAL CHICKEN COUNCIL: Even in a free-range type of style of production, you're basically going to find most of them inside the grow out facility where the food and water is located.

CALLEBS: Once again, the question of animal cruelty is creeping into our collective consciousness, due in large part to a disturbing video of poultry workers abusing chickens at a Pilgrim's Pride facility in West Virginia that is not free range. The company fired 11 workers for their actions. The fast-food company KFC says it won't buy birds from this plant until it's assured it has cleaned up its act.

PAUL SHAPIRO, COMPASSION OVER KILLING: Most people have no idea how abused farmed animals really are.

CALLEBS: But the poultry industry says there is a reason mainstream commercial growers resist free-range chickens.

LOBB: When you let chickens outdoors, they can mix with wild birds and possibly pick up certain disease problems from wild birds. Ducks and geese, for example are known to be carriers of avian influenza.

CALLEBS: Under government guidelines, just because they are free range, that doesn't mean they aren't getting growth hormones. The animals rights group, Compassion Over Killing, says keeping birds in cramped coops leads to this: tiny legs overburdened by bodies swollen by hormones to the point chickens die because they can't reach the water source.

CNN made a retraction regarding the above statement that chickens are given hormones. Chickens are given growth-promoting drugs, but they are antibiotics, not hormones.

SHAPIRO: Improved animal welfare generally will mean increased cost. However, it's a small price to pay to ensure that animal cruelty ceases.

CALLEBS: The poultry industry denies its birds are stressed or abused, saying if that was the case, the product wouldn't be healthy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS: But critics are vowing to continue to raise their voices, saying right now, free range sounds much kinder than it actually is. Sean Callebs, CNN, Washington.