Shocking video of battery hens in Blandford

[Marigold]

I knew commercial hens had a rough life, but I thought regulations had to some extent managed to prevent suffering like this.
This video makes me so angry and upset. Don't watch it, if you can't stand seeing hens in extreme distress.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-43465439

 

[rick]

Beyond words!
What I do find surprising is that conditions like that turn a profit.
A few months ago, someone who I would see on the street told me that they had been given a job working in a poultry factory. While glad they had found employment it was also worrying that this person who was too clinically stupid to get out of torrential rain all day (I know, homeless, but no-one just stands in cold rain for hours) was dispatching chickens. Cheap labour, no training.
Didn't last long in the job of course.
Sorry, too depressing!

 

[Margaid]

Didn't watch the video as the report was bad enough. Self regulation obviously doesn't work as the poor hens weren't checked often enough, but how come this wasn't picked up by any external inspectors. Some firm seem to get away with things - like the halal abattoir not far from me. I could make out a case for reverse racial discrimination as the small abattoir attached to a butsher's shop has to dispose of it's waste products every day - and not by discharging stuff into the river!

 

[LadyA]

Maybe it's connected somehow to this debate? https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-sentience-brexit-vote-caroline-lucas-michael-gove-truth-fact-argument-a8072071.html
This section of the article is particularly interesting:

"They point particularly to the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which contains laws about animals in distress.

It was that law that Theresa May pointed to during Prime Minister’s Questions this week. She said that the UK law had enough protections because of the 2006 act.

Ms Lucas says that law is problematic because it doesn’t contain the guarantee about sentience, and it is limited only to companion animals or pets – not farm animals, lab animals or wild animals."