A recent undercover report reveals distressing conditions in which the free range chickens at Tyson's farms are being kept. These chickens endure highly unhygienic and cramped environments, occasionally going without food for extended periods. As a result, they suffer from disturbing lesions, injuries, and deformities of various kinds.
From Vox:
Last fall, an undercover investigator worked for two months at a Virginia farm outside Richmond that raises chickens on contract for Tyson Foods, America’s largest chicken company. During their short stint on behalf of the Washington, DC-based animal rights group Animal Outlook, the investigator documented hours upon hours of the typical horrors found on chicken factory farms: tens of thousands of birds stuffed into dark warehouse-sized barns, many of them severely injured with gruesome lesions, injuries, and deformities. At more than one point, birds are deprived of feed or water, and there was also a rat infestation and footage of bugs crawling in the chickens’ feed.
The conditions are visibly at odds with Tyson’s advertising claims that it treats animals humanely and raises “happy” and “healthy” chickens.
“It’s just a living nightmare,” the investigator, who requested anonymity due to the covert nature of undercover investigations, told Vox. “A video just does not do it any justice.”
“We were disturbed by what we saw in the video,” Tyson Foods spokesperson Kelsie Gibbs wrote to Vox over email. “Since January 2023, no Tyson Foods birds have been placed on this farm and the farmer no longer has a contract to grow for Tyson Foods.” (In March, Tyson Foods announced it was shutting down operations in the area.)
While it's slightly encouraging that Tyson condemned this specific farm for it's practices, you really have to wonder how many others are slipping under the company's radar.
My guess is it's quite a lot...
