The videos show newly hatched chicks lying close together in slopes. The animals that are badly injured eat each other alive. In one sequence, for example, one can see how a chicken pecks at another’s open belly.
– It is deplorable. You have to be able to do better. After all, we have laws and regulations to follow, says Niklas Lundberg at the Swedish Animal Protection Association when he sees the material.
The films are recorded at the Swehatch hatchery in Skåne. Swehatch is a wholly owned subsidiary of the chicken giant Kronfågel. Around half a million broiler chickens are hatched in the facility every week. After being incubated in cabinets, the newly hatched are taken for sorting.
Lying injured for hours
Those that are not judged to be suitable for production are removed. Sick, injured, late-hatched and malformed are put aside in a hill to be gassed to death shortly. But the time codes of the films show that the injured several times lie down for up to three hours before they are taken to euthanasia.
– If an animal is in great suffering and you don’t see that it will get better, then it should be euthanized as soon as possible, says Helena Wall, professor at the Department of Animal Feeding and Care at the Swedish University of Agriculture.
She conducts research on poultry production and has extensive experience in animal welfare and the handling of broiler chickens. Even if the images look unpleasant, not everything in the handling needs to indicate abuse according to Helena Wall.
– The chickens I see that are injured, they should have been killed immediately, but then there are others that look a bit generally droopy and have been sorted out for that reason. Then it all depends on how often you take him over the hill with the outcasts. How long do you think it is acceptable for the chickens to be there?
Activist undercover
The films are recorded with a hidden camera by an activist from the organization Animal Rights Alliance. Earlier this year, the person took a job at the hatchery to be able to document how the chickens are handled.
TV4 Nyheterna has chosen to show the images as they reveal hitherto unknown flaws at a leading company in the food industry.
– We do this to make visible the fate of animals and what animals are exposed to in our society today. It should not be allowed to happen in secret and then that this is one of the ways that has to be done, says Malin Gustafsson who is spokesperson for the Animal Rights Alliance.
Kronfågel’s CEO about the pictures
TV4 Nyheterna has shown the films from the hatchery for Kronfågel’s CEO Fredrik Strømmen.
– I react strongly. It gets emotional for me too. I and all our employees have animal welfare as our first priority and highest goal. So what I see here is something that absolutely does not follow our procedures. Those who are really weak should be euthanized immediately and not lie together as we see in the pictures here, he says.
Fredrik Strømmen believes that the films are connected to a production stop earlier this year when the pressure was heavy on the hatchery.
– Then all the focus is on getting production started again. Then it is important that the routines are followed. But here I think it has gone so fast that we have not kept up and maybe it is an employee who has not been properly trained by us, who has not done things properly and the birds then end up together and are not handled in accordance with our routines, says CEO Fredrik Strømmen.
“Very surprised”
According to Kronfågel, the films do not show a long-term and systematic imbalance in the production.
– I strongly deny that. Both the vet and those in production are very surprised by what they saw. This is something that we believe is linked to a production stop and then it could happen, says Fredrik Strømmen at Kronfågel.
– Kronfågel should take responsibility for what they expose the animals to instead of making bad excuses. It is not about a single occasion, but what the animals were routinely forced to endure during the period we worked at the hatchery. It shows our footage from several days and is also something that the person who worked undercover testifies to, says Malin Gustafsson at the Animal Rights Alliance.