Day-old chicks are shredded alive in grinder

FLUFFY yellow day-old chicks are thrown alive into industrial grinders for being surplus to requirements, new undercover footage shows.

- NADA FARHOUD

The scenes - rarely seen - were obtained by the French animal welfare group L214 and show the slaughter on a mass scale. Millions of chicks being culled simply because they cannot lay eggs and are not suitable for meat production. Worryingly, this cruelty could also be exported to the UK.

Once they reach the end of a conveyor belt, the footage appears to show chicks being shredded alive in a grinder.

Others appear to endure additional cruelty from an operator who crushes them with a broom and throws them into the grinder like balls.

L214 has filed a complaint for serious ill-treatment of animals, which is currently under review.

Every year in the UK, 40-45 million day-old male chicks are killed - usually by gassing. This wasteful and controversial process is called hatch and dispatch and a campaign to switch to new technology is being lobbied for in Parliament to avoid these chicks having a brief life and a pointless death.