Exposed Again: Shameful Cruelty at Pilgrim’s Pride

This week, a new multi-state investigative video, filmed behind the closed doors of Pilgrim’s Pride, was released by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The video uncovers shocking cruelty to chickens at a Pilgrim’s-owned slaughter plant in Texas and a contract supplier in Georgia: birds are being punched, slammed into shackles, bludgeoned with a metal rod, and grabbed by their necks and thrown.

Pilgrim’s should take no pride in such brutality and the company has already severed ties with the contract farm in Georgia — but this isn’t the first time cruelty was caught on camera inside a factory farm that contracts with Pilgrim’s, the second largest chicken producer in the nation.

In 2014, CNN aired a prime-time exclusive report exposing egregious cruelty to chickens filmed by a Compassion Over Killing investigator who worked inside a North Carolina chicken factory farm that contracted with Pilgrim’s. In our heartbreaking video, chickens are shown routinely suffering from ammonia burns, crippling leg deformities, and more. Workers are shown throwing the birds across the massive, filthy sheds, and they collect dead and dying birds in the same buckets — then those unwanted birds, many of whom are still alive, are dumped and buried in outdoor pits.

Sadly, cruelty is standard practice in the chicken industry.

HSUS’s new video, like countless others, also reveals the devastating effects of rapid growth on broiler chickens (birds raised for their meat). Genetically manipulated by the industry to grow unnaturally large and fast, these birds often suffer heart attacks and painful leg deformities, making it difficult to stand or walk.

You can learn more about the miseries forced upon birds by visiting COK’s ChickenIndustry.com – it’s an in-depth and evolving look inside an industry that raises and slaughters more than 8 billion animals in the US each year. Click here for ways to take action.

The best way we can protect chickens, and all animals, is simply to leave them off our plates! Visit TryVeg.com today for vegan recipes, tips, and so much more.

Watch COK’s investigation – Pilgrim’s Shame: Chickens Buried Alive