“Abby the Abused Chicken—a
graphic, seven-foot-tall chicken with a bloody broken wing, slit throat, and
open wounds—and members of Mercy For Animals have
taken to the streets, holding protests outside grocery stores selling Tyson
Foods chicken and delivering over 150,000 petition signatures to Tyson’s
Springdale, Arkansas, headquarters to demand the company stop torturing birds.
The protests follow
the release of hidden-camera footage taken at a Tyson chicken factory farm exposing
workers violently clubbing birds to death and breaking their necks; birds bred
to grow so fast they often died from heart attacks and organ failure; and birds
living in their own waste. Crammed by the thousands into
filthy, windowless sheds, Tyson chickens also buckle under their own unnatural
body weight, and chafe and develop boils and sores from the toxic, ammonia-laden
flooring.
MFA and consumers are now calling on Tyson to improve its chicken
welfare guidelines by providing more room, natural light, environmental
enrichment, and clean air and litter; shifting to slower-growing breeds of
birds; and switching to less cruel killing systems that eliminate the
horrific suffering caused by shackling, stunning, and slitting the throats of
conscious animals. Though chickens comprise over 95 percent of animals killed
for food each year in the U.S., no federal laws protect them on farms and they
are excluded from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
So far, protests have been held outside of Harris Teeter, Kroger, Food Giant, and Publix stores in Knoxville
and Memphis in Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Birmingham, Alabama; and Charlotte,
Asheville, Greensboro, and Raleigh in North Carolina. Demonstrations will
continue across the country until Tyson addresses consumers’ concerns about the
company’s egregious abuse of birds.
Many of MFA’s previous undercover
videos have prompted massive animal welfare policy changes from major food
companies, including Walmart and Nestlé. However, Tyson refuses to meet with
MFA and continues to allow horrific animal cruelty in its facilities. As the world’s largest meat producer, Tyson
has the power, and ethical responsibility, to make meaningful animal welfare
changes for chickens.
You can help! Sign the petition, comment under Tyson’s Facebook posts, and tweet at Tyson to politely ask the company
to stop torturing chickens.
And remember, the
best way to spare birds and other animals a life of suffering is to choose humane vegetarian alternatives
to meat, dairy, and eggs. Learn more at ChooseVeg.com.