Working Undercover at Perdue

A COK Investigation

Every single hour, one million chickens are killed in the United States. The enormity of the number of lost lives—simply to give us chicken nuggets, legs, and wings—is difficult to grasp. Even harder to comprehend is the incredible suffering these animals are forced to endure, not only on the factory farm, as COK investigators have documented, but also in the slaughterhouse.

From September 16, 2004 through October 1, 2004, a COK investigator worked undercover in the hanging room of the Perdue Farms slaughter plant in Showell, Maryland. Using a hidden camera, he documented horrible—yet routine—cruelty to animals on a daily basis.

Despite Perdue's claim on its website that "individuals handling poultry must be trained in animal husbandry," COK's investigator did not receive one moment of animal care training before working with live animals. The investigator asked other workers in the hanging room if they had received any training or guidance in animal welfare and learned that none did.

Press coverage of COK's latest undercover investigation was extensive, with newspapers, online news sites, and television stations reporting on the horrifying scenes documented every day our investigator worked at Perdue.

As of December 2004, no one at Perdue has been charged with animal cruelty.

Below are excerpts from our investigator's daily log notes, providing an inside look into a chicken slaughter facility.

Thursday, September 16, 2004
My first day...was spent filling out forms, watching videos, and listening to presentations. The videos focused solely on worker safety and food contamination, not once instructing new employees as to the proper way to handle the animals. In fact, of the hours of videos shown, there were only about 3 seconds of footage of live animals....The presentations did not mention animal welfare, animal handling, or animal treatment at all.

Friday, September 17, 2004
As soon as I entered the [live hang] room, the smell of chicken waste hit me so hard I struggled to keep from vomiting. The line leader took me to my position...and gave me one sentence of instruction: "Pick up the chickens upside-down and put their legs in the shackle." ... [S]ince our workday ended once a quota was achieved, workers grabbed the chickens as quickly—and thereby as roughly—as possible from the conveyer belt, often picking them up by one wing, one leg, or their necks....Nearly every chicken responded with screams and violent physical reactions from the moment they were grabbed by workers and as they went through the line. The screaming of the birds and the frenzied flapping of their wings were so loud that you had to yell to the worker next to you, who was standing less than two feet away, just so he could hear you....

Monday, September 20, 2004
At one point, so many chickens had piled up on top of each other at one end of the conveyer belt that the line backed up. The worker quickly grabbed the chickens and threw them back down the line to clear the conveyer entrance of birds. One of the birds was thrown right past my face, nearly hitting me. Neither the supervisor nor any of the other workers said anything to the employee throwing the chickens....I saw some chickens being shackled with their heads caught between their legs and the shackle. Since they weren't hanging upside down, their necks would completely miss the slicing blade, so they'd presumably go into the scalding tanks while fully conscious....While one of the workers talked about football, he "spiked" a chicken onto the conveyer belt, pretending he had scored a touchdown....

Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Today I saw about 50 birds being dumped from the transport crates onto the conveyer belt, a distance of approximately eight feet. The crate tipped them all at once, so they fell on top of each other. The screaming was intense during the whole process. I looked onto the conveyer belt and could clearly see chickens with broken legs and wings, limbs sticking out in unnatural angles....As well, dead birds could be seen lying around the hanging room floor.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004
During my break, I walked outside to check the trucks waiting to dump the chickens onto the conveyer belt. The chickens were literally packed wing to wing and the crates were so small that the birds couldn't even stand erect. Scattered throughout the trucking area were dying birds who must have fallen off the truck during the unloading process. These birds were clearly injured, but none of the workers paid any attention to them....During lunch, I went into the hanging room....The belt was filled with birds, injured and dying, and others already dead. Chickens were lying on top of each other so the ones at the bottom had to struggle...to stick their heads up to breathe.

Thursday, September 23, 2004
The throwing of birds started almost immediately today as birds kept falling off the belt onto the floor. The workers, obviously frustrated, quickly grabbed the chickens from the ground and aggressively threw them back onto the belt....I walked outside during lunch and saw more than 20 birds scattered around the plant. Most were so injured they could only flap their wings occasionally but some could limp around. I looked inside the dumpsters, outside the hanging room entrance, and they were filled half-way up with dead chickens. After staring into the dumpster for a few moments, I saw two bodies were moving—there were live birds left to die amidst dead chickens.

Friday, September 24, 2004
Today, I was able to check out the kill floor. Properly shackled birds hang by their legs so their necks can be sliced open by the rotating blade. For those whose necks are not cut, a kill floor operator is supposed to kill them manually. Despite this, I saw some chickens who had completely missed the throat-cutting blade and yet were ignored by the worker, so they would enter the scalding tank while fully conscious. Many chickens who did get their necks cut flapped their wings intensely and shook violently as they bled to death....

Monday, September 27, 2004
Today, a worker walked the length of the live hang room floor, picking up chickens and throwing them against the shackles. As the birds slammed against the shackles, the line shook so hard that some other birds already on the conveyer belt would be knocked off onto the floor. Again, no one said anything about the aggressive behavior, even though there were more birds thrown today than any other....

Tuesday, September 28, 2004
More of the same in terms of the regularity of birds being thrown around. At one point, the shackle line was stopped. While we waited for it to start up again, one worker swung live chickens above his head and threw them against the shackles as the co-workers stood back and laughed....

Wednesday, September 29, 2004
There were so many dead birds on the floor of the hanging room that it was difficult to take a step without stepping on one. During one break, a worker repeatedly slapped a chicken in the face until the line started again....

Thursday, September 30, 2004
[T]oday was also filled with workers throwing and kicking birds, shackling them improperly, and basically ignoring those who were injured. I say "basically" because some [workers] would seemingly purposefully step on the birds lying on the ground, unable to move....

Friday, October 1, 2004
As usual, there were dozens of dying and injured birds piled on top of each other on the conveyer belt during lunch break. There were two birds in particular who were especially noticeable. They both were on their backs, piled in with other birds, with their legs spread out and barely breathing....

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