Why do supermarkets spend so much money on their marketing campaigns? Why does not a single supermarket advert show the daily life of a chicken on an intensive farm, where 95 per cent of all their chickens come from?

Animal welfare charity Open Cages recently released footage that exposed the cruel reality of a Morrisons chicken supplier. Deemed “Frankenchickens”, these chickens are genetically engineered to grow at a grossly unnatural rate and thus suffer widespread health issues as their undeveloped bones fail to support their own body weight. The horrific lifeless bodies of these sentient beings starkly contrast the wholesome portrait Morrisons’ “Market Street” ‘welfare assured meat’ would have us believe. 

Open Cages, The Humane League UK and Animal Equality UK are imploring Morrisons to sign the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), which aims to improve welfare conditions for farmed chickens in the UK and end the prolific breeding of “frankenchickens” by using instead breeds that haven’t been so ruthlessly selectively bred and so do not fall victim to the same welfare issues. Protests, led by Morrisons employee Doug Maw, took place nationwide to support this movement, under the slogan “Morrisons Misery”.

Whilst Doug Maw is facing disciplinary action from Morrisons for bravely speaking up for this cause, the supermarket retaliated to the footage by saying they “care deeply about animal welfare and require all our suppliers to maintain the highest standards”. Cranswick, the supplier in question, responded by saying: “The film shows a small number of our chickens suffering on farms operated by Cranswick and these birds should have been removed as part of our standard high welfare procedures.”

Cranswick stated their confidence that the incidents caught on camera are ‘isolated’ and said: “We are extremely proud of our long-standing reputation for maintaining excellent standards of animal welfare across the business, and this will always be our top priority. All of our chicken farms operate to the accredited standards of the Red Tractor mark and have a long-standing track record of excellent independent audit results.”

To claim these occurrences are isolated is deceitful and quite clearly inaccurate. On all the farms videoed by Open Cages, chickens are seen living in utter squalor. Earlier this year, undercover footage from Viva! exposed the horrific conditions chickens reared for KFC, Lidl, Tesco and Sainsburys all endure. These baby animals (most chickens reared for meat are slaughtered at 42 days) suffer incomprehensibly; heart attacks and lung problems are rife due to their fast growth, with many breaking their legs or losing the ability to walk. Due to the ammonia-rich faeces covering the shed floors, many suffer ‘hock burns’, which can be seen on 82 per cent (or more) of birds sold in supermarkets. Feather pecking and cannibalism are common – due to distress, lack of an enriching environment and an imbalance in the natural pecking order. Dead birds are rarely removed and become stamped into the ground, their lifeless bodies strewn amongst the living. Their wounds can further drive cannibalism. Birds can die from dehydration and starvation from inaccessibility to feeding points. Where chickens are reared to a high density, so-called ‘thinning’ is a process whereby a few are removed (by catching them by their legs and stuffing them into crates) before they reach ‘maximum weight’ to allow the remaining chickens to grow larger, causing high levels of anguish for the captured birds. These stories are not isolated - they are guaranteed by a system that forces the lifeless bodies of these birds to pay the price for cheap consumer-bought meat.

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To tackle this, the BCC outlines six main standards to be met by all suppliers, for 100 per cent of their chicken by 2026. These standards include at least 50lux of light including natural light and at least two metres of usable perch space and two pecking substrates per 1,000 birds. Whilst these improvements in the environment for chickens are groundbreaking and would in some sense make a difference to their lives, we have seen in previous breakthrough cases that these welfare standards can easily be adapted to suit profit-minded suppliers. For example, enrichment cages for laying hens, which were the result of many years of hard campaigning by animal welfare activists, are in reality hardly any better than the battery system of before.

Another standard outlined by the BCC relates to the slaughter of chickens. Suppliers would have to “adopt controlled atmospheric stunning using inert gas or multi-phase systems, or effective electrical stunning without live inversion”. Currently, chickens sold for their meat in this country are either gassed to death or shackled by their feet, hung upside down and stunned in an electrical water bath before having their necks cut. Often, chickens bleed to death fully conscious as their heads do not touch the water bath. The BCC’s standard would thus reduce the suffering at slaughter.

However, is this an oxymoron in itself? Can we really reduce the suffering in the slaughter of a bird who does not need to die in the first place? And would such welfare reforms simply allow consumers to believe that it is still moral to put thirty seconds of sensory enjoyment above the life of a sentient being? As vegan alternatives to chicken grow in this country - such as VFC - the condemnation of one billion chickens a year to a life of torture and misery is blindingly barbaric.

Crucially, however, welfare reforms such as these do have real power in their ability to work towards a world in which no non-human animals are exploited. As currently seen in California, Proposition 12, which outlines greater welfare standards for pigs reared for meat in the state, could shut down suppliers unable to pay for the changes required to meet those standards. 

Ironically, Morrisons’ policies are rooted in the following ‘Five Freedoms’ of the Animal Welfare Council 1979: freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury and disease; freedom to express normal behaviour; freedom from fear and distress. They rest easy hiding behind the ‘Red Tractor’ stamp, which was reported to have exceedingly low animal welfare standards and is “barely worth the label it’s printed on”. The pursuit of the welfare standards proposed by the BCC, urged by Open Cages and other charities, is understandable. They would reduce the severity of suffering that farmed chickens bear. However, the above freedoms can and will never be reached when a non-human animal is being bred and killed for human consumption. A chicken can never “express normal behaviour” or be free from “fear and distress” whilst locked away in a warehouse hidden from public view. If we want to end the suffering of these birds, we must stop eating them.

Nina Copleston is a writer and non-human animal rights champion. Having been concerned with social justice issues such as disability rights and homelessness for years, Nina turned her attention to the rights of non-human animals and the moral inconsistencies rife within society's attitudes towards animals. Determined to make a difference, Nina hopes to highlight these inconsistencies with her writing.

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